What is Happening to Them?

Last week, when I met with a Zambian social worker and asked her this question, she didn't have an answer for me. "So, you are saying that if/when a child with a disability is abandoned or orphaned, there is nowhere for them to go?" Her simple “there is nowhere” hardly seemed like an answer at all. I wanted to stand up out of my chair and yell "Then where do they go? What is happening to them?"

And though I did not do so then, it is still a question that must be asked; one that deserves a proper answer. I understand that currently in Zambia (and most other southern African countries) there is nowhere for orphaned or abandoned children with disabilities, especially intellectual disabilities, to go. We have not yet found a place that will knowingly and willfully take such a child. But here is the thing, once abandoned or orphaned, these children don't just evaporate- so what is happening to them?

Perhaps the best (I use the word 'best' to mean the most satisfying amongst a very dissatisfactory list of options) answer comes in the form of statistics most widely recognized by the World Health Organization. For starters, 4 out of 5 of them die before they reach their fifth birthday (WHO states that in the developing world, the mortality rate of children with disabilities under age 5 is 80%). And since 95% of the worlds' 163 million orphans (numbers reported by UNICEF) are over the age of 5, speculation and extrapolation would lead one to assume there actually aren't very many orphans who have disabilities in the developing world. Most of them simply don't live long enough to have the chance to be abandoned or orphaned.

And so what is the rest of the world doing with these sorry attempts to explain what is happening to children with disabilities? For the most part, nothing. This week, UN leaders from across the globe met to discuss progress (or non-progress) in accomplishing the Millennium Development Goals set for Africa. These 8 objectives were compiled in 1990 and were slated to be achieved by 2015- and with only 5 years left and 'the current pace insufficient to meet the target,' I suppose it seemed about time to hold a summit in order to rally towards the finish line. While these leaders met in NY to discuss strategy and plans for Africa- my guess is that an entire people group was left out the development discussion. Rights for people with disabilities are not explicitly mentioned in any of the MDG's. Sure, one of the goals is to achieve 'universal' primary education for children in Africa- so children with disabilities must be included in that, right? Pretty big goal to accomplish within the next 5 years, considering the fact that currently only 2% of children with disabilities in Africa are enrolled in school. My guess is that they didn’t actually mean universal.

Politicians are one thing, but what about on an individual and family level- what are actual people around the world doing for African children with disabilities? Inter-country adoption has been on the rise for years, and yet children with disabilities are hardly ever the ones to be picked. The demand remains for healthy (well, relatively), typically developing adoptees, and therefore, orphans with special needs remain on waiting lists. “Oh, our family just couldn’t handle the needs of a child with disabilities. The best interest of the child would certainly mean choosing not to adopt them into our family.” And when you have a whole host of people looking out for the ‘best interest’ of these children in this way, you end up with a whole lot of children with ‘nowhere’ to go.

But then again, why would one expect the rest of the world to act, when the abortion rates of children with disabilities are increasing in almost every Western nation? I doubt the UN leader from France would be the one to recognize the missing piece of the development puzzle (the abortion rate of children who have Down syndrome in France is right around 90%).

You see, “What is happening to them?” is a question that actually needs to be asked in most places around the world, developed or not. There must be better answers out there somewhere, even if only in the fantasies of a few hopeful world-changing individuals. It is my own hope that some of those crazy dreams for kids with disabilities somehow become reality- my own wild aspirations included.

Further reading:
MDG's- http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
WHO- http://www.who.int/disabilities/media/events/idpdinfo031209/en/