Orphans of the World

In the U.S. 397,122 children are living without permanent families in the foster care system. 101,666 of these children are eligible for adoption, but nearly 32% of these children will wait over three years in foster care before being adopted.

Source: AFCARS Report, No. 20
Around the world, there are an estimated 153 million orphans who have lost one parent. There are 17,900,000 orphans who have lost both parents and are living in orphanages or on the streets and lack the care and attention required for healthy development. These children are at risk for disease, malnutrition, and death.

Source: Childinfo (UNICEF, 2011)

According to the U.S. State Department, U.S. families adopted more than 7,000 children in 2012. Last year, Americans adopted the highest number of children from China followed by Ethiopia, Ukraine, Haiti, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Source: United States Department of State (FY 2013 Annual Report)

No child under three years of age should be placed in institutional care without a parent or primary caregiver, according to research from 32 European countries, including nine in-depth country studies, which considered the “risk of harm in terms of attachment disorder, developmental delay and neural atrophy in the developing brain."

Source: Childcentre.info (Executive Summary)

Children raised in orphanages have an IQ 20 points lower than their peers in foster care, according to a meta-analysis of 75 studies (more than 3,800 children in 19 countries).

Source: IQ of Children Growing Up in Children's Homes A Meta-Analysis on IQ Delays in Orphanages
In 2012, 23,396 youth aged out of the U.S. foster care system without the emotional and financial support necessary to succeed. Nearly 40% had been homeless or couch surfed, nearly 60% of young men had been convicted of a crime, and only 48% were employed. 75% of women and 33% of men receive government benefits to meet basic needs. 50% of all youth who aged out were involved in substance use and 17% of the females were pregnant.

Source: AFCARS Report, No. 20,  Jim Casey Youth
Nearly 25% of youth aging out did not have a high school diploma or GED, and a mere 6% had finished a two- or four-year degree after aging out of foster care. One study shows 70% of all youth in foster care have the desire to attend college.

Source: Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth
As of 2012, more than 58,000 children in the U.S. foster care system were placed in institutions or group homes, not in traditional foster homes.

Source: AFCARS Report, No. 20
States spent a mere 1.2-1.3% of available federal funds on parent recruitment and training services even though 22% of children in foster care had adoption as their goal.

Source: Adoption Advocate No. 6: Parent Recruitment and Training: A Crucial, Neglected Child
Three years is the average length of time a child in foster care waits to be adopted. Roughly 55% of these children have had three or more placements. An earlier study found that 33% of children had changed elementary schools five or more times, losing relationships and falling behind educationally.

Source: AFCARS Report, No. 20
Adopted children make-up roughly 2% of the total child population under the age of 18, but 11% of all adolescents referred for therapy have been adopted.  Post-adoption services are important to all types of adoption, whether foster care adoption, international adoption, or domestic infant adoption.

Source: Behavior Problems and Mental Health Contacts in Adopted, Foster and Nonadopted Children
http://www.ccainstitute.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=25&Itemid=43

 An orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose biological parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them. Biological parents, and sometimes biological grandparents, are legally responsible for supporting children, but in the absence of these or other relatives willing to care for the children, they become a ward of the state, and orphanages are one way of providing for their care, housing and education.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphanage

Who are the Hungry?

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Most of the world’s hungry live in developing countries. According to the latest Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) statistics from 2013, there are 842 million hungry people in the world and 98 percent of them are in developing countries.  They are distributed like this:

Rural risk

Three-quarters of all hungry people live in rural areas, mainly in the villages of Asia and Africa. Overwhelmingly dependent on agriculture for their food, these populations have no alternative source of income or employment. As a result, they are vulnerable to crises. Many migrate to cities in their search for employment, swelling the ever-expanding populations of shanty towns in developing countries.

Hungry farmers

FAO calculates that around half of the world's hungry people are from smallholder farming communities,  surviving off marginal lands prone to natural disasters like drought or flood. Another 20 percent belong to landless families dependent on farming and about 10 percent live in communities whose livelihoods depend on herding, fishing or forest resources.
The remaining 20 percent live in shanty towns on the periphery of the biggest cities in developing countries. The numbers of poor and hungry city dwellers are rising rapidly along with the world's total urban population.

Children

An estimated 146 million children in developing countries are underweight - the result of acute or chronic hunger (Source: The State of the World's Children, UNICEF, 2009).  All too often, child hunger is inherited: up to 17 million children are born underweight annually, the result of inadequate nutrition before and during pregnancy.

Women

Women are the world's primary food producers, yet cultural traditions and social structures often mean women are much more affected by hunger and poverty than men. A mother who is stunted or underweight due to an inadequate diet often give birth to low birthweight children.
Around 50 per cent of pregnant women in developing countries are iron deficient (source: Unicef). Lack of iron means 315,000 women die annually from hemorrhage at childbirth. As a result, women, and in particular expectant and nursing mothers, often need special or increased intake of food.
 http://www.wfp.org/hunger/who-are

The Health of The Orphans

About the Situation By the Numbers Half of the top 20 causes of death worldwide are infectious diseases, and maternal, neonatal and nutritional causes In high-income countries, 8% of years of life are lost due to the above causes In Africa, 70% of all years of life lost are due to those causes Nearly 800 women die every day due to complications in pregnancy and childbirth (Source: World Health Organization) Preventing illness is often as simple as soap, clean water, hygienic sanitation facilities and perhaps as piece of netting to protect children from malaria-transmitting mosquito bites. When these basic items are provided, the number of illnesses drops drastically. These are still unattainable luxuries in some regions of the world. But preventing illness is not the only challenge. Once an individual becomes ill, access to health care varies widely: Poor populations tend to have less access to health care. In some countries, as few as 10% of births are attended by skilled health workers, according to the World Health Organization. Every two minutes, a woman dies of pregnancy-related complications—over the course of a year, more than a quarter of a million woman die from pregnancy and childbirth complications. And poor children live much shorter lives than children from wealthy families, in part due to inadequate health care. A boy born in 2012 in a high-income country can expect to live 75.8 years—more than 15 years longer than a boy born in a low-income country. For those less fortunate, even small interventions—from improved hygiene to vaccinations—can make a big difference. 
 www.irusa.org/programs/health/

Children Waiting In the States

State	Children Waiting FY 2012*	Churches*
Alabama	1,155	10,760
Alaska	786	1,050
Arizona	2,910	3,771
Arkansas	1,020	6,343
California	13,091	22,798
Colorado	916	3,813
Connecticut	1,385	2,909
Delaware	243	1,009
District of Columbia	303	825
Florida	5,127	16,805
Georgia	1,645	14,380
Hawaii	223	1,163
Idaho	278	1,776
Illinois	2,936	13,097
Indiana	2,318	9,204
Iowa	961	4,766
Kansas	1,853	4,615
Kentucky	1,999	6,859
Louisiana	1,088	7,983
Maine	480	1,539
Maryland	559	5,816
Massachusetts	2,468	4,039
Michigan	3,583	11,169
Minnesota	983	5,628
Mississippi	890	7,718
Missouri	2,065	8,973
Montana	403	1,518
Nebraska	904	2,595
Nevada	1,879	1,248
New Hampshire	182	1,033
New Jersey	2,226	6,713
New Mexico	836	1,796
New York	6,056	14,767
North Carolina	2,070	17,625
North Dakota	210	1,252
Ohio	2,655	14,657
Oklahoma	2,803	6,737
Oregon	2,062	3,646
Pennsylvania	1,924	15,539
Rhode Island	223	703
South Carolina	1,330	9,479
South Dakota	397	1,368
Tennessee	2,514	11,179
Texas	13,148	27,505
Utah	566	2,582
Vermont	226	692
Virginia	1,517	10,952
Washington	2,865	5,393
West Virginia	1,404	3,432
Wisconsin	1,129	6,045
Wyoming	107	803
Puerto Rico	818
Total	101,719	348,067

 http://list.infousa.com/acl.htm    
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/children_waiting2012.pdf
Throughout the United States, more than 100,000 children and youth are in need of permanent adoptive families.  For reasons such as abuse, neglect, and abandonment, their birth families are unwilling or unable to provide for the needs of these kids.  Once the court has determined they cannot safely live with birth family, the search begins for a family willing to adopt.  Unfortunately for many kids, the waiting time for that family can be months or even years.
The chart above shows the official number of children in your state’s foster care system waiting for adoptive families (as reported by states to the federal government). The number of children in foster care in each state is much higher – this number only represents those awaiting permanent families. The powerful point illustrated in the chart below is this: with the number of churches in the U.S., why should we have any waiting children in U.S. foster care?
To view pictures of some of the waiting children and youth, please visit the Heart Gallery of America web site.



(This means that there are less children than churches so at least one family should be able to adopt a child.)

The Orphans of the USA and Latin America

By Penny Young Nance and Glorya Taylor Jordan, Special to CP

May 30, 2013|11:34 am There is a quiet crisis playing out in our nation that most women don't know exists. We all desire that every child in America grow up in a stable, loving, safe home. Unfortunately, that isn't happening for tens of thousands of 
little ones.

USA:

• There are over 120,000 orphans in America, while another 400,000 children live without permanent families (HHS; AFCARS).
• It is common for children in foster care to age out, leaving them with little financial or emotional support. 27,000 children age out of the system every year (AFCARS).
• Almost 25% of youth aging out did not have a high school diploma or GED (University of Chicago).

Latin America:

• 7.5 million girls are married before age 18 in Latin America and the Caribbean.(UNICEF)
• There are 10.2 million orphaned children in Latin America, 5% of all children in the region. (UNICEF)
• • Women and children are especially vulnerable in Latin America; underage minors represent 50% of people living in extreme poverty. (World Bank).http://www.sos-usa.org/getmedia/246fc337-bbf2-4dc0-9b0d-22a52ff92dab/tpa-picture-64753.jpg?ext=.jpg

Why Colombia?

In 2010 Colombia had 577,000 orphans. (Children on the Brink) Note: For a little perspective, Orphan Hope International makes approx. 4 organized trips to Colombia per year. We minister to approx. 500 orphans per trip. At that rate it would take us 289 years to just see every orphan once.
Girls, especially orphans, are abducted into child soldiery and sexual slavery and are sometimes forced into armed service by their parents as a form of ‘tax payment’, as happens in Colombia. (THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2005)
In Colombia, for example, girls as young as 12 are reported to have submitted sexually to armed groups in order to ensure their families’ safety. (THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2005)
Interpol estimates there are 35,000 women and girls trafficked out of Colombia every year for the sex trade, with estimated profits of $500 million, making Colombia second only to the Dominican Republic in the West. It is beyond comprehension the horror that these women and girls face as they service on average 40 clients per day. (Interpol)
1.2 million children are trafficked every year world wide; this is in addition to the millions already held captive by trafficking.
The average age of a trafficked victim is 14 years old.
One can only imagine what will happen to the sweet, pretty girls that we meet in the orphanages when they are turned out into the street at 18 years of age. This is why we have made safe houses one of our four main priorities so that these girls are not on the street and vulnerable. Will you help us?
<a href="http://www.orphanhopeintl.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/colombia.jpg" rel="lightbox[auto_group]"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-222" src="http://www.orphanhopeintl.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/colombia.jpg" height="268" style="opacity: 1;" title="colombia" width="574" /><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;,Courier,monospace;"></span></a><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;,Courier,monospace;"> </span><br />

Facts & Statistics

http://orphanomics.com/about-us/414window/http://orphanomics.com/about-us/414window/

It is estimated there are between 143 million and 210 million orphans worldwide (recent UNICEF)

 
 Every day 5,760 more children become orphans.
Approximately 250,000 children are adopted annually, but…
Each year 14, 505, 000 children grow up as orphans and age out of the system by age sixteen.
Each day 38,493 orphans age out.
Every 2.2 seconds another orphan ages out with no family to belong to and no place to call home.
  9http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2003/InternationalAdoptionRateinUSDoubledinthe190s.aspx
Studies have shown that 10% – 15% of these children commit suicide before they reach age eighteen.
These studies also show that 60% of the girls become prostitutes and 70% of the boys become hardened criminals.
 Another study reported that of the 15,000 orphans aging out of state-run institutions every year, 10% committed suicide, 5,000 were unemployed, 6,000 were homeless and 3,000 were in prison within three years…
 An estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked every year; (THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2005)

2 million children, the majority of them girls, are sexually exploited in the multibillion-dollar commercial sex industry. (THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2005)http://www.orphanhelpers.org/Blog/tabid/327/entryid/3323/orphan-statistics.aspx#.U_yHSWM0fTp

The Decline of International Adoption

"With the opening of China and Russia in the 1990s, international adoption exploded -- 410,000 children were adopted by citizens of 27 countries between 2000 and 2010, according to Peter Selman, an international adoption expert from Newcastle University and statistical adviser to the U.N. Hague Convention on international adoption."CNN World

 "Chinese orphanages then were stuffed with abandoned infants," largely girls, Caughman said, as boys were preferred by families after the implementation of the one-child policy. "Russia was on its knees in a catastrophic situation as the social fabric unraveled."CNN World

 I think it's both a surprise that it's been dropping, and it's a surprise that significant forces are opposed to international adoption
Elizabeth Bartholet, Harvard Law School

 The U.S. adopts more children internationally, but also domestically, as the rest of the world combined
Adam Pertman, author of "Adoption Nation"

"Laura Blitzer with her daughter, Cydney, adopted from China in 2000. Blitzer has waited six years to adopt a second child"CNN World
"Transnational adoptions grew in popularity following the World War II -- at least 50,000 took place from 1948 to 1969''CNN Worldf International Adoptions20032004200520062007200820092010201120k30k40k50k

"Laura Blitzer 
with her daughter, Cydney, adopted from China in 2000. Blitzer has waited six years to adopt a second child"CNN World
"Transnational adoptions grew in popularity following the World War II -- at least 50,000 took place from 1948 to"CNN World