Two out of three orphanages are illegal and will be closed, says govt

Two out of three of Liberia’s 108 orphanages are to be closed for operating illegally and failing to meet minimum standards, the Health Ministry said on Friday. A total 69 of the country’s 108 orphanages, operating in 11 of Liberia’s 15 counties, had been identified as being sub-standard by a government inter-agency taskforce, a ministry report said. The orphanages did not have adequate records of the children housed there and did not have operating licenses from the government, Deputy Health Minister Vivian Cherue told IRIN. "The 69 orphanages were found to be operating illegally and also they did not meet the government's minimum guidelines for the operation of orphanages," Cherue said. The majority of the orphanages are located in and around the capital, Monrovia. Some 2,800 children were found in sub-standard orphanage homes and the government said in its report that plans were underway to transfer them. "The children will be either reunified with their families or relocated to accredited orphanages," the report said. Many local and international groups have expressed alarm recently over the poor state of most of Liberia's orphanages. In January, the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) Rights Section reported that it had assessed 78 orphanages around Liberia and found most sub-standard. "Most orphanages were found to be in very poor condition, lacking basic requirements for the protection of children's emotional and physical well-being," the UN report said. Worst of all, UNMIL said the sanitary conditions in some of the homes were alarming. It cited a case of an orphanage in Monrovia where seven boys slept in a tiny single room with no beds and with no access to toilets, meaning the boys urinated and defecated around the building. National Child Rights Observation Group (NACROG), which groups UN child protection agencies, the Liberian government, international aid agencies and local rights groups, said in February that "living conditions at most of these orphanages are deplorable and inhumane". In a report last month, NACROG said some institutions, while purporting to help orphans, were charging huge sums of money for adoption to foreigners. NACROG, comprising representatives of local and international NGOs, civil society, and several ministries, is asking the government to investigate three orphanages and calling for a halt to all adoptions from Liberia. “Suspicion that most of these homes are involved with trafficking of children is very serious and thus demands an investigation,” NACROG head Jerolinmek Piah told IRIN. “From our findings thus far, most of the adoption homes are agents and or facilitators of child trafficking.”