Kashmir Affairs - Security & Conflict Analysis of Kashmir

Should orphanages be there or not?
Rabia Noor
21 November 2008

The Kashmir conflict that killed thousands of people since 1989, also evolved a wretched new generation that has never witnessed peace in their native land. This generation also includes those 80,000 orphans, who stand in the no man’s land between politics and war. No wonder the existing conditions have become a barrier in their proper growth and development. So one of the biggest challenges right now for the society is to develop an effective strategy to help this “unfortunate” lot develop well socially and psychologically, in addition to providing them the basic facilities of food, clothing, shelter and education. But whether that is possible within the orphanages is presently one of the major questions before us.
While some experts believe that the time has come to have alternative arrangements for these children other than the orphanages, some of them believe that orphanages are the most practical option available right now. However, all of them are of the opinion that the orphans need to be treated as normal children and should be mixed with the other children, so that they can grow psychologically and socially in a proper way.

Here are the views of some of the experts of the state regarding what needs to be done for the orphans of Kashmir.

Mr. Abdul Rashid Hanjura, Advocate / Social Activist
Due to the conflict situation in Kashmir , we have presently 80,000 orphans in the state of J & K, out of whom 15,000 are belonging to those families, who were headed by the militants. And after the killing of these militants, these orphans stand ignored and neglected in terms of the state and central government policies.
To nourish, cater and educate these orphans, the establishment of orphanages is not the only solution. However, to adopt and educate a huge number of orphans, the community rehabilitation is the best solution. We have to involve the community leaders, Imams and local influential qualitative people in the process, so that the community at large could be made aware and sensitive towards their duties and responsibilities for the orphans.
Ours is a Muslim dominated society and the best source of income available is zakaat, so zakaat system could be evolved and practiced in the society. Zakaat is understood as a compulsory financial payment, made by prosperous and wealthy Muslims out of their wealth that is to be distributed among the needy and deserving people of the society to relieve them from the sufferings and hardships. So on community level, there can be the best monitoring of these children by evolving and practicing this system for the deserving orphans.
The children on whole are not to be isolated from their local environment and society and they cannot be separated from their relations and guardians. Hence in the orphanages, the children feel insecurity, as they miss the natural love and affection of their relations and guardians. A warden or caretaker or mother of an orphanage is not in a position to take the place of natural guardian of child, like father or mother.
Certainly in rare cases, the orphanages are required and needed in the state, for instance for those children, who are abandoned in hospitals or at different public places and who have lost both the parents and no one is looking after them. However, the minimum standards should be maintained in the orphanage in terms of the UN convections on child rights, and the local Law should be enacted for the regulation of these orphanages. As I have experienced, presently in seventeen orphanages of Kashmir valley, run by voluntary organizations and seventeen Bal Ashrams run by the State Social Welfare Department, the minimum standards are not maintained and the best services are not available to the children stationed in these orphanages, this way the rights of child are abused and not protected. Therefore, the need has arisen in the state for the establishment of the Child Rights Protection Council for the rehabilitation of neglected orphan children, which should be established under Law in order to provide and administer justice to these children.

Dr. Arshad Hussain, Consultant, Department of Psychiatry, Government Medical College
There used to be orphans in Kashmir previously as well, though not in this number. However, they were taken care of in their own families. Their responsibility would be on the shoulders of their uncles and other relatives. I want that social responsibility to come back. If there happens to be two children in a family, I don’t think it will be a problem for the family to raise the third child as well. And we should keep in mind what Prophet Mohammad (SAW) has told us that how much good a deed it is for a person to raise an orphan. Our religion has already given us an idea about that. That is why I believe that these children will be better off in their families rather than in the orphanages. However, there are a good number of children as well, whose families are really poor and perhaps for them the change of the environment can help. Therefore, I am not straight away saying that abolish the orphanage system, however I suggest having an alternative system.
I guess, we should think of alternative structures rather than continuing with the existing orphanages that are taking care of the children of the valley. And one of the things that I am laying stress on for a long is that we should have some very good boarding schools, where not only the children from the orphanages, but from the families too will go and study. And ofcourse the education and the accommodation would be provided absolutely free to the orphans. But the orphans will get the atmosphere the other children have. And then during the vacations, for instance 15 days in summers or two months in winters, they can go back to their families, say uncles, who would not mind taking care of them for a certain period of time and also won’t feel financial burden on them. So the children would have both the things-the family environment for certain duration of time and a better environment at school.
The orphanages might have been the need of the hour, because the things happened so fast in Kashmir that we never thought of it and we actually had to have these structures to come into existence. It was the time, when thinking of boarding schools and other things might have been too much, but now the time has come to think that how better we are making the life of the orphans, both physically and psychologically. I have visited almost all the orphanages and I think most of the orphanages to some extent do give love and care to them in the physical way. But what a mother can do for a child is not a physical thing. She might even keep her child hungry for a whole day, but the child still loves her, so does the mother. In an orphanage, if a child doesn’t get food for one day, the orphanage people would be called “brutal.” But that would never be said for a mother. This is natural, this can’t be changed; a mother is a mother after all. The children do get a good physical care in most of the orphanages, and ofcourse it has been found in some exceptional cases that the care provided to the children was not optimal and there were a lot of health issues as well.
Then I believe that keeping children in orphanages continuously lowers their self-esteem. What they see throughout the day is again abjectness. They get only those people to talk to who have similar stories as them. More they learn about the environment they are living in, more conscious they become about it and more it will effect their self-esteem. They learn nothing but the same thing, though the world is not only that. They are being taught only black, though world is multi-colored. That is why, I want a normal school for these children, where they see the other children also grow with them, who have many other things to share with them. I don’t want these children get stuck with the traumas they have faced in life. Let them see the world with their own eyes and decide what is wrong and right. I don’t want other people to tell them this. It is quite possible that in the orphanages they see it through the eyes of the adults. Once children see everything by the eyes of others who many a time have pre-conceived notions about everything and see the world in black and world, it won’t let the children develop psychologically to a perfect level. This is what worries me. I don’t want them get stuck up with their trauma, but I want them come out of it. For that, giving them better environment is of primary importance. Perhaps only the coming years will tell us that how these children have evolved and what these children will turn into. But nobody can guess at this point of time. Many of the significant people, who have contributed in some way to the world, have often had difficult childhood; many of them have been orphans. So all is not lost. There is still a hope. But then also, I always feel that now is the time we ought to introspect in the structure of the orphanages. We ought to think of alternative structures. And for that, for my limited senses, this boarding school always comes to my mind. There can be some better ideas. I want people to come up with their ideas and share with the others, so that we actually give them better environment to develop physically as well psychologically.
I pray to the Almighty that these children come out of their trauma, they contribute to the society, become better persons and evolve their traumas in the way that they never become venegeant, but they still fight for justice. This is my dream.

Dr Aneesa Shafi, Department of Sociology, Kashmir University .
There is a greater need to have orphanages in our society, because ours is a conflict-hit society and we have alarming growth of orphans over here. Normally we never used to have that great number of the orphans in the society as has come to the forefront during the conflict period. Earlier orphans would be taken care of by their near ones, for there would be joint families in the society. The need of having orphanages over here has obviously come in view of the fact that the overall scenario of the society has changed; the society has changed from the extended family set-up to the nuclear family set-up, ofcourse because of some compulsions. The conflict situation has equally hit the two important institutions of the society-the institution of the family and the economic institution; economically also we are at a setback. And ofcourse there is a drastic transformation in the set-up of the family in itself, so there is nobody ready even within the family to take care of the orphans; now we don’t have the hands available to take care of them. Had we still be having the system of extended and joint families, there was no need of having the orphanages. But now there is definitely a need, because the time demands so in order to look after the welfare of these children and so that their development can take place in a very proper way. We cannot go ahead without these types of institutions now.
But the only thing is that the orphanages should not be run in the name of the orphanages. This is very important.. This is because it gives the sign to these little blooming kids that something is wrong with them and they are not the normal children. Once this term we label the institutions, where these kids are being kept, they always live under the shade of submissiveness and subordination. It is better to look after them in terms of providing them with better boarding and lodging facilities, better education and good food, but not in the name of the orphanages.
Then a culture has developed in our society that we just try to differentiate these children from the rest of the children. For instance, I have seen at many places that no doubt they wear a proper uniform when they go to school, but they are made to wear a small cap or a scarf in order to differentiate them from the other children. I suppose, such kind of attitude should not be with these children, because this definitely comes as a barrier in the proper development of their personality. We should take them as the normal children and try to give the best to them, not in terms of the orphanages, but as the boarding schools, where we can mix them with the other children; it is just not necessary that you will keep only orphans there. By keeping them in a separate atmosphere, isolating them from the rest of the children and always giving them this kind of impression that something wrong has happened to them, it is quite possible that a shabby kind of the personality will emerge out of them. My whole aim is that let us have orphanages, but not in the name if the orphanages.
Besides, we need to take a proper care of their social development, psychological development and the overall development. And for that, the proper monitoring of these institutions is very much important. These are run by various agencies, which is a very appreciative thing, but how they run and what kind of culture they are inculcating, that needs to be monitored at some level. We need to have some kind of expert opinion, so that these can be run in a very better way.

Dr Bashir Ahmad Dabla, Sociologist
In the present situation, there is definitely a need of having orphanages, because many of the orphans have no other means to survive. Many of the orphans belong to very poor families, where they don’t have a systematic arrangement of help, nor a situation, where they can be provided with all sorts of necessities of life. So in that situation, it is the orphanage, where these children can get the necessities of life, the education, the place to live in and so on. Ideally speaking, they are to be brought up in the normal social conditions and a normal home environment, but that cannot be provided to everyone; so the only home environment they could get in the present situation is in the orphanage.
Ofcourse they may have some negative psychological impacts in the orphanages, but you can’t avoid them. You see, these are the institutions, where you don’t have the positive aspects only; obviously you have the negative aspects as well. The moment the children join an orphanage, they get an orphanage mentality. Their entire life style gets socialized in that kind of orientation. But they are trapped in this situation. Either they can go for manual work or they can join the orphanages.
These are an unfortunate lot. They have lost their one or both parents, so they have to suffer for that. Now the point is that how can we minimize these sufferings. You can’t give them their father or mother, but you can provide them an environment, which their father could have provided. You may not provide the 100 per cent of it, but you can still try to provide at least 80 or 90 per cent of that. It depends upon your resources and the ideological and political orientation also. You should try to provide them the maximum facilities, so that they don’t go with these kinds of psychological limitations. And it is quite possible to do so. Some orphanages have got strong financial resources. I expect from their organizers to provide better facilities to these children in terms of better teaching, better environment, better life style and so on. Some organizations have already done so, but many orphanages don’t have continuous and systematic financial resources, so they feel shortage of finances for providing all the facilities.
The organizers of the orphanages must try and keep the children in a situation, in which the negative implications are avoided. Situations can be created like this. There are some orphanages, in which the organizers are providing such kind of environment, in which they try to do their best to keep children away from the negative implications, but certain human psychologies cannot be avoided. Even children in the orphanages face some psychological implications.
The societal attempt should be that the orphans must be provided all the facilities at home, but since that is not possible, we think of other alternatives in terms of orphanages or other arrangements. But one thing that has to be realized is that an orphanage cannot replace home and the orphanage people cannot replace parents. This is the basic reality that has to be accepted.

Parveena Ahangar, Founder, Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP)
Not all orphans are taken care of by the orphanages. There are many, who still don’t find a way-out and a place to live in. I believe that orphanages should be there, because it is in the orphanages, where the children can get good education, food, shelter and many other facilities and then they can also learn many skills. Otherwise it is quite possible that they lost their track. The negative psychological impact is no doubt there, but that is with every child, who has lost his or her parents. Then it is also obvious that the children in the orphanages get inferiority complex that they have to first seek permission, then they can get food, etc. But these things cannot be avoided.