The Global Slavery Index 2023

​Regional: Asia and Pacific (Part 4)

​Orphanages: Modern Slavery Hubs
Despite overwhelming evidence cataloguing the harms of institutional care for children, an estimated 5.4 million children worldwide live in orphanages and other institutions. While many assume that orphanages are home to children who have no living parents, research consistently demonstrates that this is not the case for over 80 per cent of children living in orphanages globally.
 
In many countries, only a small proportion of children’s institutions are registered with the government, which leaves many children invisible to necessary oversight and protections, and hinders data collection efforts. The institutionalised population, including children in orphanages, are underrepresented in the prevalence estimates within this Global Slavery Index for this reason. 
 
While the case for global care reform is not new, more recent evidence from governments and civil society organisations highlights the multifaceted relationship between children’s institutions and human trafficking — revealing a complex web of factors that position orphanages as both a driver and an outcome of exploitation. In 2019, the links between institutions and child trafficking were recognised by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). For the first time, member states collectively expressed their concern over the harm that institutions can cause to children and called for them to be progressively phased out. In its historic Resolution on the Rights of the Child, the UNGA set out the political and human rights case for transforming care systems and made some ground- breaking recommendations. Governments and civil society now have an opportunity to implement these recommendations. 
 
Trafficking into orphanages 
Child trafficking into institutions, also referred to as orphanage trafficking, is described as “the recruitment of children into residential care institutions for the purpose of profit and exploitation.” This practice is linked to the funding of orphanages through private donations, volunteer tourism, mission trips, and other forms of fundraising. It is estimated that US Christian organisations alone donate approximately US$3.3 billion to residential care each year. The popular practice of orphanage volunteering — people from high-income countries traveling abroad to help children living in orphanages — also serves to provide a continual income for the orphanage, as well as reduced labour costs for the care of the children. However, there is a grim downside to all of this. 
 
Although often well-intentioned, these sources of financial and in-kind support undermine national efforts to support broader child protection and social welfare systems by creating a parallel system without official oversight and accountability. They also create a marketplace that can incentivise the expansion of existing orphanages and the establishment of new ones, with the supply of funding and resources into orphanages increasing the demand for children to be in them. There is evidence of children being deliberately recruited from vulnerable families to fill spaces in orphanages, under the guise of better care and access to education. Once trafficked into orphanages, children are vulnerable to neglect, abuse, and exploitation. Orphanages that are run for profit have been found to operate under extremely poor conditions to drive down care costs, with evidence also pointing to children being kept deliberately malnourished to encourage further donations, forced to interact with and perform for visitors, or forced to beg for financial donations. 
 
The popularity of orphanage “volunteering” has seen a rise in orphanages built in tourist hotspots to fulfil demand and capitalise on the financial potential. In Cambodia, for example, there was a 75 per cent increase in the number of residential care institutions in a five-year period, despite no correlating increase in the number of children losing both parents. In Uganda, the number of children in institutions increased from just over one thousand in the late 1990s to 55,000 in 2018, despite large decreases in the number of orphans. The presence of volunteers also places children at increased risk of sexual abuse. There have been numerous documented cases of perpetrators posing as well- intentioned orphanage volunteers to gain access to vulnerable children, taking advantage of often unregulated, unvetted, and unsupervised access. 
 
Australian Modern Slavery Act addressing orphanage trafficking 
The Australian Modern Slavery Act (2018) defines and recognises orphanage trafficking as a form of modern slavery under the Act’s definition. As such, reporting entities with orphanages in their structures, supply chains, funding models, or operations must assess for and report on risks of modern slavery in these contexts. Additionally, the Commonwealth Modern Slavery Act Guidance Material includes information on orphanage trafficking and the exploitation of children in orphanages, identifying orphanage volunteering and tourism as a related risk factor. Guidance has been developed by civil society organisations to assist entities reporting under the Australian legislation to understand its implications. 
 
Walk Free 2023. Global Slavery Index 2023. Minderoo Foundation Ltd. Australia.