Orphan Care: A Comparative View

It is estimated that there are some 140 million orphans world-wide, most of them in poorer regions.

Joanne Bailey and the contributors to this volume review the socio-political context and services for the care of orphans in select middle and low-income countries. The contributors, editor excluded, are all non-westerners, writing about practices in their home countries. This indigenous expert approach toward information gathering is unique in the international social work literature, and this is particularly true when discussing coverage of orphan care in non-western countries.

Focusing on orphan populations from six countries on four different continents, each chapter covers the history and background of policy and services to orphans, the dominant reasons children are brought into care; and the prevailing forms of current orphan services. The six countries profiled share some important similarities such as shifting political and economic realities that compromise current orphan care systems, but there are also dramatic differences between the countries, particularly in terms of the sophistication of the social work profession.

Orphan Care offers insights and analysis rarely found in the conventional sociological literature on orphans and orphan services, and, as such, is a must-read for social workers, NGO leaders, policy-markers and sociology majors alike.