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Nearly 4,000 children in West Africa have lost one or both parents to Ebola since the start of outbreak – the worst in the disease’s history – according to UNICEF estimates. And while there has been a reported halt in intercountry adoptions from the impacted region, humanitarian groups are far more concerned about the epidemic’s effect on long-treasured kinship networks, which social workers have traditionally tapped to take in Africa’s orphans. Afraid and unsure of how Ebola spreads, neighbors and extended family members of orphaned children have been more resistant than usual to provide homes for the newly homeless.

“One of the things that we were seeing during the peak of the Ebola response, when the cases were multiplying, was that there were issues of communities’ becoming very fearful to take in children,” said Amy Richmond, child protection adviser at Save the Children. “It was difficult to mobilize foster families.”

If left on their own without family-based care, orphaned children face extreme risks in Africa, both in terms of their intellectual and psychological development, as well as in terms of their physical well-being.

“Imagine how vulnerable a child is when they have no protective care. They could disappear and no one would know it,” said Tom DiFilipo, president and CEO of the Joint Council on International Children’s Services. “We could try to combat sex trafficking and child labor, but if we could prevent that in the first place, isn’t that better?”....(more)