Protect orphans from abuse, govt urged
Face of Hope (FoH), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), has called on government to fast-track enactment of regulations to guide operation of child care institutions (CCIs), saying some of them are cashing in on vulnerable children.
In a statement issued on Friday FoH directors Chipo Dube, Frances Hussein and Joel Mwenelupembe said government’s failure to enact regulations to guide the management of CCIs, especially orphanages, has led to free-for-all running of these institutions with little regard to standards.
The statement further hailed The Nation for exposing abuses in orphanages in an article published three weeks ago, saying the expose should compel government into urgent action.
Reads the statement in part: “With government’s reluctance to gazette the Child Care Justice and Protection Act’s [CCJPA] Regulations since 2010, child care institutions and the community have no good reason to comply with the law.
“Almost 99 percent of the CCI have less than 10 percent compliance to the CCJPA 2010 since the arms of the government fail to ensure that there is zero tolerance to infringing rights of any child in Malawi.”
The NGO claims that there is a cartel involving individuals or organisations and community leaders who are cashing in on orphanages and this is because, besides regulations, there is no supervision on most of these institutions.
Ministry of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare spokesperson Pauline Kaude said they are still waiting for Ministry of Justice to finalise working on the guidelines.
She said: “The guidelines were reviewed to ensure that Child Care Institutions are complying. It is still the mandate of [our] ministry to register child care institutions and this is done through social welfare offices in the districts. So far, there are 122 child care institutions which are registered and operational.”
The Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC), which has equally decried conditions in most orphanages, has also been calling for the enactment of these regulations. In an earlier interview, Ministry of Justice spokesperson Pirirani Masanjala said they had received drafting instructions for regulations and they were working on them 12 years after the law came into force.
