Pooja, eight, and Rahul, five, lost their father in April 2020 and mother in May 2021 to Covid-19. Their mother was gasping for breath when taken to hospital leaving two children who have yet to make sense of why she has not returned home. They join many other children in India where the exponential rise in infections and deaths has left many without parents. While the pandemic’s impact on life and livelihood is profound, to large extent the health effects on children has been invisible. Children are less likely to get seriously ill, and there have been far fewer deaths compared to adult populations yet they are still suffering as silent victims of the coronavirus.
According to the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), In India at least 3,621 children have been orphaned while over 26,000 have lost one parent between April 2020 to 5th June 2021. The sad truth is that the real picture is likely to be quite different. The unfolding pandemic situation has exposed the fragile child protection system of the country. This was seen in a very similar way during Odisha super cyclone in 1999, Bhuj earthquake in 2001, Tsunami in 2004, and during other natural calamities.
Despite such experiences, India has failed to build a comprehensive safety net for children. The rising number of so-called ‘Covid Orphans’ is a matter of great concern. Besides emotional trauma, these children are vulnerable to exploitation including from risk of forced marriage, child labour, trafficking and illegal adoption. The child protection system in place is simply not robust enough to secure the safety of each child. Instead, there is an urgent need for communities to work together with the Indian national and regional governments to protect children at risk.
The mechanisms for protecting children
While the legal framework for child protection in India has recognised the need to shift from institutional care to family-based care, it has yet to be uniformly applied. The reality for most children whose parents die is to go into institutional care provided by the Indian state. A pre Covid-19 report from the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MoWCD, 2018) identified more than 370,000 children living in over 9,500 Child Care Institutions in India. Research shows that that placing children in institutions can damage and delay their development.
There are available alternatives. In many cases, children in Child Care Institutions (CCIs) could be reunited with their family or kin if a thorough situation analysis and supportive social security services were available to these families. Under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 there is provision for non-institutional care, defined as adoption, foster care and sponsorship.
Such types of non-institutional alternative care are in the best interests of the child, yet provision of these services is limited. Of the three family-based types of care, the focus is largely on adoption which is almost the default option and provided in an adult-centric, procedurally controlled way. Each year on average 3,500-4,000 children are adopted in India. Foster care is very limited to pre-adoption foster care and child sponsorship is sporadic. The poor implementation of these home-based care options indicates their low priority by the government due to their significant financial implications.
When it comes to adoption, India follows a ‘closed adoption’ process, in which there is no contact between adoptive parents and birth parents. This leaves adopted children with little chance of reuniting with their birth families. The closed process can foster uncertainty and ambiguities by leading a child to have to consider that their birth family almost did not exist.
Why are Covid Orphans different?
Viruses do not discriminate against who they impact upon and, as a result of Covid-19 crisis, there are many children, like Pooja and Rahul, will be left without their parents. The situation for Covid orphans is worsened by the fractured health care system of India. This resulted in many more dying from the virus because of the inadequate bed facilities and lack of oxygen supplies.
Yet, while their parents may have passed away, these children have not necessarily lost everything as seen after devastating disasters such as earthquake or Tsunami. In many cases seen during the Covid-19 pandemic, these children’s social network of extended family members, relatives, family-like friends remain and can or want to come forward and help. However, there is evidence that on the death of a parent children are being removed from their homes and social networks to be placed in institutional care, causing severe damage to their mental, emotional, and developmental needs.
There is also concern that the contradictory definitions of ‘Covid orphan’ could mean children are described as such when they may have lost one rather than both parents. Such contrary meaning could lead to forceful separation of children from their family when they still have one living parent.
What must be done?
The practice of children being raised by relatives or close non-related members of their family is not new in Indian culture. Considering the contextual reality and exponential growth in the number of Covid-19 orphans, the Indian government needs to recognise it is a viable option and therefore expand their support for provision of this alternative family-based care. Placing a child with kin caregivers or in a family setup has the potential to minimise trauma and preserve their connection to family and community. In the foster care provision, under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015, the government could expand kinship care.
Alongside, there is a need to better understand how many children could be affected. Central/State government should develop a database of children who have lost one or both parents. A careful categorisation would be helpful to develop a comprehensive and need-based plan to support children and their families. This could then be used to develop an initial assessment framework for prospective carers that would ensure the safeguarding of children and support carers in forming new kinship/foster family arrangements. The result would be that adoption rather than the default option would be the last resort should a child not be placed in home-based care. In case of adoption, priority should be placing the siblings together in one family. Above all and throughout this process, children’s voices must be listened to and their views used to frame the support they receive. In the current approach, particularly because of the focus on adoption, they are likely be marginalised in the adult-centric culture.
The family-based care intervention could reduce children’s mental and emotional stress, strengthen sibling ties, protect them being separated from their kin and community, ensure continuity of education, and most importantly prevent exploitation. It requires a step change in approach from the Indian government including interventions that require more comprehensive planning and therefore additional resources – both human and financial.
More action is needed
The Central Government has announced some measures to support Covid orphans including provision of a fund of 10 lakh for each child where both parents have died from Covid-19. This is alongside some states providing additional financial assistance and educational support. While these steps are positive, the impact they have will be limited because there are many thousands who have died without being tested and therefore receiving a Covid-19 diagnosis.
While the government cannot fill the void left when a child loses their parent, they have a responsibility to consider how to protect the child from further damage. It is time to fix the broken child protection system. Instead of focusing on institutional care and adoption, the government must invest in home-based alternative care and make a child-oriented policy and practice a reality. If they do not act, they will have failed children just as they failed to protect their parents from Covid-19.
Sushri Sangtia Puhan is a Doctoral Researcher & International Development Practitioner, School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sussex
