Contributors: Katja Uthardt, Annika Wiklund, Camilla Sandell, Harriet Huhtamäki, Kirsi Louhi-Timmerbacka
the book is available from the editor, mail to kaj.bjorkqvist@abo.fi
cover photo: Katja Uthardt © All rights reserved.
According to conservative estimations, 100 million children in the world of today are homeless and the figure does not seem to be on the decrease, rather the opposite. Eighty percent of all orphaned, abandoned, and destitute children live in Third World countries - the war in Rwanda, alone, left 100.000 children without parents - but Western countries are by no means spared from the problem. India has a perhaps greater number of destitute children than any other single nation in the world. These children are in an acute need of authoritative measures that will ensure their safety and provide care for their primary and emotional needs. It can hardly be questioned that the organisation of care for orphaned and abandoned children is one of the greatest societal and moral problems the world community is facing at the moment.
The purpose of the project described in this report was to investigate how orphaned and abandoned children are taken care of within different child welfare approaches in an area with a very high number of destitute children, the Calcutta region of West Bengal, India. Twenty-one orphanages were targeted and examined. The report also provides analyses of different child welfare approaches in the world in general, of the psychological complications involved in being a destitute child, and of the Hindu family and society. The foremost aim of the project was to gain knowledge which hopefully will aid in the development of optimal child welfare services.