Erin Devanadera 

The importance of child care can be seen around the world, but it can often be situated in places prone to ambiguity and neglect. 


As the feasibility of foster care becomes more in demand, the appeal of adoption institutions decreases. Such is a reality in Uganda, Africa, in which child care is “plentiful” but is often facilitated with little governmental aid and credibility. 

The official identification of 24 unregistered orphanages housing 1,200 children in Mukono, Uganda, on February 27, 2024, by the Ministry of Gender, Labour, and Social Development (MGLSD), highlights the country’s critical situation of child care, pointing to the illegal demarcation of orphanages often operating without proper evaluation, management, and collaboration with the government. 

“We have identified 105 children’s homes operating illegally in the country, and the majority of them are in Wakiso, Kampala, Mukono, and Jinja,” said Shafik Butanda, the principal probation and welfare officer of the organization, in a media briefing about the issue. 

“We have had meetings with the directors of some of these unapproved child homes, and in March, we shall assess them and see the numbers of children in these facilities,” he added.

“On closure, we shall send some children to foster parents, trace them, and reintegrate some of them with their relatives, while those who have nowhere to go will be placed in the homes around them,” Butanda also emphasized, implicating the resurfacing need for familial and community intervention in child care.  

The lived experiences of children involved in such illegal activities, although well-intended, can have drastic impacts on their physical and mental well-being. Moreover, the reliability of these establishments, as previously mentioned, does little to further improve the state of the issue, warranting the analysis of contributing figures leading to the systematic and individual challenges faced by each respective individual in the African home and community.

A slanted history 

African culture rests on its rich, diverse traditions and practices but is fundamentally anchored in the concept and embodiment of family and community aid. This traditional belief can be traced back to an African proverb that says, “It takes a village to raise a child,” amplifying the role of families and acquaintances in caring for neglected children within their environments. 

The infamous regulation of the Masters and Servants Act in 1856 vouched a minimal provision appointing suitable persons or individuals assigned as substitute families for children with deceased relatives who were thereby neglected. The institutional mandate for such child care, however, was only legalized in 1983 in Cape Town, South Africa, allowing smoother accessibility for the government to conduct and provide better assessments and resources in enhancing family and community-based care and planning for any children involved. 

Between the years of such legislation, global epidemics, like AIDS and influenza, became key periods in the course of familial and community aid in most parts of the continent, which negatively impacted the stability of the food, medicine, and institutional child care in many African countries, cities, and villages (e.g., Freetown, Uganda, and Kinshasa) in 1918 and 1983.

“The epidemic had a terrible toll, leaving behind 'a generation' of flu orphans, widows, and widowers, as well as a legacy in national public health legislation whose implementation by no means benefited the majority,” said Professor Julia Parle in her summary for the book “In a Time of a Plague” by Howard Philipps in May 2019, which showcased a variety of letters and testimonies during the Spanish flu in South Africa. 

“Many of them cared for their parents and at the same time had to look after their younger siblings and their livelihood for the family. If the orphans are not received by relatives after the death of their parents, they are completely on their own. Many of them then end up on the street with no hope for a future,” said SOS Children’s Villages, an international nongovernmental organization committed to fostering child care and adoption, on the environmental implications of AIDS today for most African children facing such physical diseases and familial abandonment.

Two-angled problem 

The prevailing issues surrounding Ugandan orphanages not only shed light on their historical roots but also signify the need for transparency and governmental involvement in ensuring healthy and sustainable child care in the country. The population rate of children in orphanages peaked from 1,000 in the late 1990s to 55,000 in 2019, with 300 unregistered orphanages revealing a more in-depth problem. 

“The Ugandan government has received millions of dollars from the United States, the European Union, and other partners to do this,” said Halima Gikandi, an African correspondent and journalist, in her report on child neglect in Ugandan orphanages on March 7, 2024.

“Despite those efforts, these kinds of children’s homes, especially illegal ones, continue to proliferate in Uganda — often operating outside of government oversight and in opposition to the best practices and guidelines laid out by child-care specialists,” she added. 

A 2019 case study also found that emotional, physical, and sexual abuse in such institutions is more likely to be prevalent, often being left unreported and properly evaluated by the founders and directors of the said institutions. 

“Sometimes, some people refused to feed the children who they thought were likely to soil their clothes and thus increase the volume of their chores,” said former caretaker Harriet Nakawuki during an interview on child abuse in a Kampalan orphanage on April 11, 2019. 

“Yet, these are babies. They don’t know toilet etiquette. They have not been trained to use a potty. But here they are, being starved, for no reason of their own,” she added. 

In comparison, the accommodation and return of familial care have also raised their complications, with multiple studies pointing to equality of abuse and neglect, such as malnutrition and violent disciplinary action, when left with little governmental supervision and assistance. 

“In Uganda, most children have experienced some form of violence and abuse. More than 8 million children are considered to be vulnerable to harm,” said the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in their report on child protection systems tackling the prevalence of child abuse in Uganda, such as child marriage, genital mutilation, and sexual abuse. 

“Orphans are ill-treated and abused by their extended family members to the extent that they choose to find safety in the streets from where some of them are picked and placed in some orphanages, such as the individual-based ones,” said Offard Kanjanda, a researcher from Zimbabwe University, in their report tackling the day-to-day experiences of African orphans in August 2014, highlighting several reasons why many African children prefer living in orphanages over living in family-based communities. 

Proposed child care

In succession, government personnel, childcare specialists, and caretakers have united to find possible solutions to such issues, including the re-evaluation of orphanage aid towards family and community-based assistance, which can help equalize the state of both institutions properly.

“We should focus on solutions that strengthen families and communities, address root causes of the orphan crisis (such as HIV/AIDS and poverty), and provide sustainable support systems,” said writer and volunteer Zambia Hunt in her article challenging Western misconceptions toward orphan care in Africa on October 18, 2024. 

In fact, a local Ugandan orphanage, St. Mugaga Boys’ Home, is reshifting its goal towards family and community-based care. This care seeks to help orphaned children live in communities with satisfactory aid, assistance, and resources focused on strengthening family and community relationships. 

“We help each child's family be self-sufficient with job skills training, child care, parenting, and life skills development, and social workers to provide psychosocial support,” said Nicholus Nuwagira, one of the orphanage and project founders supporting family-based care in Uganda. 

This is further signified by the foundational need for family and community-based units, as reiterated by the vast sociological literature pointing to its depth. 

“Family-based care includes building the capacity of families to provide and care for children, helping them gain support and access to necessary services to meet the material, educational, and emotional needs of their children,” said Elli Oswald, executive director of the Faith to Action initiative, on the benefits of raising children in environments based on healthy familial care on March 4, 2024. 

“This work helps to unify children in orphanages with their families, as well as prevent children from entering orphanages and being separated from their families in the first place,” she added.
Although such proposals and actions could greatly advance and benefit the approaches of child care and many African children in Uganda, it should also be noted that certain exceptions and cases have to also be considered, especially in understanding the societal and environmental contexts in which most Ugandan orphanages and children are situated. 

“Banning orphanages in Uganda may not be the solution to the problems faced by orphans and children with special needs,” said the Love Uganda Foundation, a Ugandan nongovernmental organization, on how the suspension of all orphanages in Uganda might not be considerate and ideal. 

“What should be done by the government is to create rules and terms that should be followed when setting up an orphanage in the country—helping in financing them to avoid relying only on donations and charity fundraising,” they added.