Study examines reasons behind child abandonment
AMMAN — A total of 105 children were removed from their homes and placed in care facilities due to being subjected to some form of abuse during the first quarter of 2022, according to a study by SOS Children’s Village Jordan.
It also showed that the number of children who were born out of wedlock and admitted into the care centres of the Ministry of Social Development reached 175 during the same period.
The study, made available to The Jordan Times, is titled “Evaluating the Needs for the Family Strengthening Programme in the East of Amman”. Its findings were presented in July during the third periodic meeting for the National Team for Family Protection at the National Council for Family Affairs (NCFA).
The Family Strengthening Programme is implemented by SOS Children’s Villages Jordan to support Jordanian families at risk of breakdown or child abandonment.
The study revealed that there are currently 675 children in residential care homes, around 85 per cent of whom come from broken homes.
Al Hussein Social Foundations received 138 children who come from broken homes, 96 children of unknown fathers and five children of unknown parents in 2021, it added.
The foundation, which is affiliated with the Eastern Amman directorate of the Ministry of Social Development, cares for abandoned girls up until the age of 12 and abandoned boys up until the age of 10.
During the first quarter of 2022, it received 90 children, including 35 of unknown parentage, 22 from families at risk of breakdown, 20 with at least one imprisoned parent, eight with divorced parents and five with a sick parent, the study showed.
Its findings revealed that family breakdown, which refers to circumstances such as divorce, separation, or abandonment, is the reason behind child abandonment in most cases.
Statistics from 2021 cited by the study show that divorce or separation in eastern Amman is caused by economic factors in 27.5 per cent of cases, followed by the intervention of other family members in 18.6 per cent of cases and domestic violence in 16.4 per cent of cases.
The study also pointed out that according to Al Hussein Social Foundation, the most prominent reasons behind children’s admission into their facilities include family breakdown (in the form of divorce, separation or abandonment), violence and neglect and being of unknown parentage.
The poverty of care providers and their inability to meet children’s basic needs, parents’ drug use, parents’ mental health issues, begging, sexual assault by care providers and relatives and the imprisonment of one or both care providers are also among the main causes of child abandonment, it stated.
Other less common reasons include having caregivers who operate brothels and the absence of birth certificates and identification papers for children for various reasons, it added.
Children with disabilities at risk of abandonment
Statistics from 2020 show that persons with disabilities make up 11.2 per cent of Jordan’s population. The study found that the abandonment of children with disabilities is a frequent occurrence in eastern Amman.
Although this claim cannot be quantitatively substantiated, the president of Al Hussein Social Development Foundation stated that disabilities are one of the main factors associated with child abandonment, according to the study.
Care providers who have children with disabilities struggle to provide them with quality care as they lack the needed support and protection from government institutions, the study stated.
In some cases, parents believe that abandoning their children so that they can be admitted into care institutions is their only option to ensure that they’re provided with medical and therapeutic care, the study added.
