Before the invasion, Ukrainian children confined to institutions were already facing unacceptable neglect. Now, without a family to protect and care for them, they are facing unprecedented dangers. Many more are being torn apart from their families amid the chaos of the war.

One of our key concerns is the delay in establishing incentralised, cross-country information management system to keep track of the nearly 100.000 children from Ukrainian institutions.This lack of information is, in and on itself, life-threatening.

We are calling, along with our partners, for robust child protection mechanisms to uphold the rights of Ukrainian children deprived of family care.

Read our key recommendations below.

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The EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child is a pivotal, years-in-the-making,  initiative aiming at upholding the rights of children in the EU and globally. The Strategy has been warmly welcomed by children rights’ advocates upon its launch, and we have eagerly awaited its implementation. For this reason, Hope and Homes, along with 17 other organisations, are taking action to share their disappointment and bewilderment at European Member States’ failing to reach an agreement on Council Conclusions supporting the Strategy last 7 October.

At a time when so many children and families are, more than ever, in need of tangible support from national authorities to recover from the health, social and economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we believe that this Strategy is vital for enabling the most vulnerable families to thrive and to avoid social exclusion, poverty, and family separation.

We are therefore ready to take steps to alert decision makers of this worrying hurdle to a strong commitment to childrens’ rights.

To read our full statement, click here.

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Hope and Homes for Children welcomes the new EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child, aimed at mainstreaming children’s rights throughout all of its work, as an important step on the journey for children’s rights.

We are particularly pleased with the European Commission’s recognition that all children are equal and its acknowledgment of children as active citizens and agents of change playing a leading role in society. We also welcome the Commission’s efforts to ensure that the Strategy was developed in consultation with children, as well as the creation of child-friendly versions of the document.

In order to make sure the Child Rights Strategy truly becomes a success in the years to come, and benefits ALL children, it is essential that children and civil society organisations representing children play an important role in its implementation.

The new Child Rights Strategy demonstrates the EU’s long-term commitment to protect children, keep families together and condemn children’s institutions to the history books. But this is just the beginning. It is crucial that we now step up our collective efforts to ensure its implementation, and make this commitment a reality for children around the world.

Read Hope for Children’s individual response to the EU’s new strategy here.

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This checklist was developed jointly with the European Expert Group on the Transition from Institutional to Family Based Care. It provides EU officials with practical recommendations to ensure that EU funds are used to support care reform. 

Read or download the checklist below

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Millions of children around the world live in institutions, including so-called “orphanages’, boarding schools, residential special schools and reception centres. They expose children to a catalogue of human rights abuses and breach their rights as enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Institutions also put children at increased risk of violence and exploitation, and can cause long term harms to children’s health and development.

Coronavirus and rising inequalities across the world are putting more children at risk of being separated from their families due to rising poverty and insufficient support for vulnerable families.

Alongside Lumos we welcome both the Child Rights Strategy (Strategy on the Rights of the Child) and the proposal for a Child Guarantee.

Child Rights Strategy
At first reading, we’re particularly pleased that the Child Rights Strategy reiterates all children’s right to live with their families and in a community. We are encouraged to see emphasis on developing integrated child protection systems that seek to prevent family separation, shift to community and family-based care, and provide support for children ageing out of care. We welcome in particular the European Commission’s commitment to:

• Present an initiative aimed at supporting the development and strengthening of integrated child protection systems;
• Invest in the transition from institution to family- and community-based care for all children across the European Union and globally;
• Designate Youth focal points and strengthen child protection capacities within the EU Delegations.

We are also pleased that the Commission will continue to encourage EU Member States to promote national strategies to speed up de-institutionalisation (including of unaccompanied migrant children).

“We’re particularly pleased that the Child Rights Strategy reiterates all children’s right to live with their families and in a community”

With these clear policy commitments in place, Hope and Homes for Children and Lumos now look to the EU institutions and Member States to ensure strong implementation, including by ensuring child care reform and deinstitutionalisation are prioritised in the programming of all the EU funds and in the upcoming Human Rights and Democracy National Action Plans. We also would like to reiterate the imperative to prohibit investment of EU funds in institutions, regardless of their size, including investments for the refurbishing, building, renovating, extending of institutions or improving energy efficiency of the care settings.

European Child Guarantee

One of the Child Rights Strategy’s deliverables is the Commission’s proposal for a Council recommendation establishing the European Child Guarantee. This proposal recommends EU Member States take concrete actions to combat child poverty and social exclusion by guaranteeing children’s access to services. We welcome the focus on “children in alternative (especially institutional) care” when identifying children in need. We also support the proposal to set up National Child Guarantee Coordinators and develop National Action Plans, so that the Commission can adequately monitor Member States’ progress in implementing the Council Recommendation.

However, we are deeply concerned that the Child Guarantee allows for the placement of children in institutional care “as last resort” (recital 24). This constitutes a considerable step back from previous child rights policies such as the 2013 Investing in Children Recommendation and is also incompatible with the new Child Rights Strategy itself and the recently adopted Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2021–2030. It is essential that the upcoming Council Conclusions on the Child Guarantee do not allow institutions as an option of last resort.

“However, we are deeply concerned that the Child Guarantee allows for the placement of children in institutional care ‘as last resort’”

In the coming weeks and months, Hope and Homes for Children and Lumos will undertake a more detailed analysis of both the Child Rights Strategy and proposal for a European Child Guarantee and consider how to support their implementation.

As Mark Waddington CBE, Chief Executive Officer at Hope and Homes for Children reflects:

“The new Child Rights Strategy demonstrates the EU’s long-term commitment to protect children, keep families together and condemn children’s institutions to the history books. But this is just the beginning. It is crucial that we now step up our collective efforts to ensure its implementation, and make this commitment a reality for children around the world.”

Chris Cuthbert, Global Director of Evidence, Advocacy and Campaigns at Lumos adds:

“It is very encouraging to see the EU placing Children’s Rights high on the political agenda, by adopting a Child Rights Strategy and Child Guarantee. Too many children are still being left behind and these new measures have huge potential to transform the life chances of some of our most vulnerable children and ensure children are no longer placed in institutions. We therefore encourage Member States to swiftly adopt a Council Recommendation on the Child Guarantee and work together with the European Commission to make both initiatives a great success. The new Child Rights Strategy demonstrates the EU’s long-term commitment to… condemn children’s institutions to the history books. But this is just the beginning”

This work is supported by Clifford Chance

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The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) can seem little more than a theatre where world leaders stamp their mark on the global news agenda in set piece grandstanding—often for the audience back home. However, beyond the headline-grabbing speeches, each year the UNGA makes important decisions affecting the lives of people around the world. Its Resolutions recommend action for all United Nations Member States to take on a wide variety of topics from human rights to education, development, climate, violence against children, and peace and security, among others. Whilst we shouldn’t over-state their importance or confuse them with binding Conventions or Treaties, UNGA Resolutions are hugely symbolic political moments that can shift global perceptions of an issue and push it up the world’s collective agenda.

“Whilst we shouldn’t over-state their importance… UNGA Resolutions are hugely symbolic political moments that can shift global perceptions of an issue and push it up the world’s collective agenda.”

This year’s UNGA Resolution on the Rights of the Child (ROC) was just such a moment. With its theme of ‘children without parental care’ it offered a rare opportunity to shine a light onto the plight of millions of children worldwide living in institutions and highlight the importance of tackling family-child separation through systemic reform of care systems.

Seizing the opportunity, Hope and Homes for Children—with like-minded organisations large and small, from every part of the world—came together to mobilise our collective advocacy efforts. Together we developed a set of Key Recommendations, eventually endorsed by more than 250 organisations which proposed language that underlined commitments already made by UN Member States and suggested measures and actions needed to move the implementation forward.

The strength of the Key Recommendation is that they were written using existing commitments made by governments in other international fora; UN Committees, statements, Resolutions, UN Guidelines etc. This meant that the text we agreed was already in ‘UN language’ and pre-tested. Through our existing networks, the original drafters were able to connect with other organisations around the world and our numbers grew. We drew on the expertise of partners too, including receiving support from Hope and Homes for Children’s partner, global law firm Allen & Overy, to help us translate the recommendation into other UN languages.

This set of Recommendations was then used by advocates everywhere to highlight the issue of children without parental care, seeking to influence those negotiating this important Resolution.

“The text we agreed was already in ‘UN language’ and pre-tested. Through our existing networks, the original drafters were able to connect with other organisations around the world and our numbers grew.”

The Resolution, formally adopted by the UN General Assembly on 18 December, includes many of the recommendations the coalition made and represents a major step forward. It is particularly notable for its recognition of the harm that institutions can cause children and its call for institutions to be progressively eliminated, the first time the UN General Assembly has acknowledged that orphanages are an unacceptable way to care for children and action must be taken to end them.

The UN’s 193 member states have also clearly communicated their global commitment to strengthen families and the care that they provide all children, prevent unnecessary separation by addressing its root causes, put an end to child institutionalisation by progressively replacing it with family and community-based care, and address some of the drivers supporting it—including orphanage volunteering.

In a crowded global environment, the perspectives of organisations focused on child protection and care reform can easily be lost in major debates. The Sustainable Development Goals for example, whilst laudable in so many ways do not once directly address children in institutions or the impact that neglect and institutionalisation can have. Working together in this way clearly demonstrates a groundswell of interest in this topic, from organisations large and small around the world, amplifying our collective voice.

“In a crowded global environment, the perspectives of organisations focused on child protection and care reform can easily be lost in major debates… Working together in this way clearly demonstrates a groundswell of interest in this topic, from organisations large and small around the world, amplifying our collective voice.”

And while UNGA Resolutions are political, not legal, this Resolution represents real progress because it gives us a new global consensus—commitments that all countries of the world have agreed to. A world without orphanages is possible, and advocates worldwide now have a new tool to use to convince governments to act and make orphanages a thing of the past.

Read the recommendations here.

Nolan Quigley is Global Advocacy Advisor at Hope and Homes for Children, and a representative in the coalition of organisations that drafted the UNGA Resolution Recommendations.

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