World Without Orphans Brazil

Country Profile: Brazil

Total Population: 211 million
Total Children under the age of 18: 61 million

The situation of children in Brazil

The Challenges:

  • Most of the kids in care in Brazil are not orphans. They came to the system because they were in serious vulnerability, primarily victims of violence, abuse, or neglect.
  • Over 50,000 kids in residential homes (46,000) and foster families (4,000).
  • 86.7% of those investigated have a family. Of these, 58.2% maintain a relationship with their family; despite being removed from the home, they still visit them periodically.
  • Merely 13.3% do not have a family and are available to be adopted.

Alternative Care in Brazil:
In Brazil, we don't protect kids well. So, many kids who should be in care are still on the streets or living in vulnerability with their biological or extended families. You can see it by the number of our population, that is huge, and in the reality of Brazil, we have more kids in residential care and foster families than in countries like England, for example. So, there is a significant lack of protection in our Basic System. Foster care is something new in Brazil. So, most of our kids are still in Residential Care. We don't have big orphanages anymore. According to our Law, the maximum number of children living in each Residential Care Unit is 20. But we are still at the beginning of the transition from Residential Care to Family-Based Care in Foster Care Services. There is a significant effort of our Government now to make it happen, and we are excited about that, and we believe that the Church is a significant part of this answer and should be involved. Most of our Residential Facilities are run by NGOs, non-profit organizations, and most of our Foster Care Services are run by the Government.

WWO Brazil website at https://wwobrasil.org.br/

Other Information about Orphaned and Vulnerable Children and Family Care in Brazil

Better Care Network Information on Family-Based Care in Brazil

More information for prayer at Operation World
 

"Source: UNICEF, Humanium, SOS Children's Villages International".

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