Models of care for orphaned and separated children and upholding children's rights: cross-sectional evidence from western Kenya

Background:
Sub-Saharan Africa is home to approximately 55 million orphaned children. The growing orphan crisis has overwhelmed many communities and has weakened the ability of extended families to meet traditional care-taking expectations. Other models of care and support have emerged in sub-Saharan Africa to address the growing orphan crisis, yet there is a lack of information on these models available in the literature. We applied a human rights framework using the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to understand what extent children's basic human rights were being upheld in institutional vs. community- or family-based care settings in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya.
Methods:
The Orphaned and Separated Children's Assessments Related to their Health and Well-Being Project is a 5-year cohort of orphaned children and adolescents aged

Source: BMC International Health and Human Rights - April 1, 2014 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Lonnie EmbletonDavid AyukuAllan KamandaLukoye AtwoliSamuel AyayaRachel VreemanWinstone NyandikoPeter GisoreJulius KoechPaula Braitstein Source Type: research