19-March-2015
NGN/THIS Launches Reintegration Guidelines for Trafficked and Displaced Children
© Next Generation Nepal/The Himalayan Innovative Society
March 19, 2015—Next Generation Nepal (NGN) has launched its Reintegration Guidelines for Trafficked and Displaced Children Living in Institutions. The Guidelines are freely available for all individuals and organizations that wish to play a part in the deinstitutionalization of Nepal’s children’s homes.
“The solution for the thousands of children living unnecessarily in orphanages in Nepal is to take them home to their families,” said Martin Punaks, the Country Director for Next Generation Nepal (NGN).
Over 16,000 children live in children’s homes and orphanages in Nepal, despite at least 2 out of 3 of these children not being orphans. The Government of Nepal’s Child Policy is clear that children’s homes should be a last resort and all efforts should be made to keep children with their families. However, children’s homes in Nepal have become a first choice for many families who are deceived by traffickers with promises of a foreign sponsor providing a “good education” at “boarding schools” in Kathmandu.
NGN developed the Guidelines along with its long-standing Nepali implementing partner, The Himalayan Innovative Society (THIS). Together they have fully reunified 130 children and reconnected a further 353 children with their families. They have also trained other reputable organizations to establish their own reintegration programs including The Umbrella Foundation and Forget Me Not. NGN and THIS have a 100 percent success rate at family reunification with no child ever being re-trafficked following their return home.
The Guidelines explain in 8 steps how civil society organizations can work with the Government to rescue children from abusive orphanages, rehabilitate them, trace their families, reconnect and reunify them with their families and monitor them so they are not re-displaced.
Tarak Dhital, the Executive Director of Nepal’s Central Child Welfare Board (CCWB), welcomed the release of the Guidelines saying they will be “a good example and reference for others to work in this issue.” He recognized that NGN and THIS, in working closely with CCWB, have “helped some of the most vulnerable children in Nepali society to return to their families where they belong.”
The Guidelines were published with support from Forget Me Not and other donors.
The Guidelines are available to download here:
Reintegration Guidelines for Trafficked and Displaced Children Living in Institutions
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