Status of Children in Tanzania - 2012 - Tanzania Education Network ...

Call for Action
to come a lot of children will be rendered parentless and therefore deprived right for parental care and
guidance.
3.0 PROFILE OF CHILDREN IN THE TARGET GROUP
3.1 Children without parental care: Definitions
Over the years, Tanzania has witnessed an increase in the number of children living without parental care and
literary with no child protection. The following section provides some important description of facilities that has
been used to accommodate children deprived parental care as a right. See Table 3, which follows:
Table 3: Definition of facilities that accommodate children
Definition of facilities that accommodate children who have been deprived right of parental care
Facility that
Description of care provided to the target group
accommodate parentless
child
Foster care
Care provided on voluntary basis by individual who is not related to a child
Children’s Homes Any premises where five or more children being orphans or children whose
relatives or guardians are unable or unwilling to care for them, are received and
cared for and maintained.
Approved residential home Licensed home whereby a child is given a substitute temporary care.
Approved schools A school or any place or institution declared as such under the provision of the
rehabilitation Act.
Retention home
A place where a child is accommodated while waiting to be trailed.
Small family group A substitute parental care provision by the government or social agency or
homes
NGOs, FBO, CSO, CBO
Relative
A person providing parental care to the child but has some blood relationship
like Grandparent, grandmother, brother, sister, cousin, uncle, auntie, nephew
Child headed
Parental care provided by Siblings themselves alone in the same family
settings.
Community based Care These are community initiated care that includes family strengthening,
psychosocial support, empowerment, economic development, and assistance
provided within child‟s own community or family like setting as alternative to the
parentless child.
Kinship care
A private arrangement whereby a child is looked after on an ongoing or
indefinite basis by relatives or friends.
Adoption
A child becoming a permanent, legal member of a family other than their birth
family
Most vulnerable children Are those children who are cared at risk of losing parental care or under the
following conditions:
• lives in extreme poverty
• is affected by a chronic illness and lacks adequate care and support
• lives without adequate adult support
• lives outside family care (e.g., in institutional care or on the streets)
• is marginalized, stigmatized, or discriminated against
• has disabilities and lacks adequate support
• in urban areas: children with one surviving parent living in a house with very
poor quality roofing (grass and/or mud) or with very poor wall materials or
without a toilet and children with a disability living in similar poor conditions
Orphan Vulnerable Children who have lost both of their parents and cared by NGOs, Government,
Children
FBO, CSO, CBO
Alternative Care
All residential care (either formal or informal) formed outside of the parental
home.
3.2 Status of children without parental care
Tanzania experience indicates that there are children surviving under different type of status as
follows:
3.2.1 Children surviving under elderly Household status
These are those children cared by elderly people and majority of them do not have their parents
and do not enjoy the right of parental care. Majority of these children have problems of accessing
their basic needs. There is no proper follow-up to their school attendance and academic progress.
As noted in Iramba, Same, Manyara some of them are sent to conduct petty business to generate
additional income at the household to procure basic necessities like food. Also noted that some do
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A loving home for every child