Every year, well-meaning volunteers and tourists travel abroad with the hope of making a difference in the lives of orphaned children. They visit orphanages, donate money, play with the children, and often form emotional bonds. While these efforts may seem charitable, they often do more harm than good. The growing industry of orphanage tourism has fueled a crisis of exploitation and trafficking—one that demands urgent legislative action.

The Connection Between Orphanage Tourism and Trafficking
Many people don’t realize that a significant number of children in orphanages are not actually orphans. In some countries, as many as 80% of children living in orphanages have at least one living parent. They are placed in institutions not because they have no family, but because orphanages have become a business—one that profits from foreign donations and tourism. The demand for “orphans” has led to child trafficking, with children being taken from their families and placed in institutions to attract donations from unsuspecting visitors.

Instead of providing genuine support, orphanage tourism creates a cycle of dependency and harm. Children are repeatedly exposed to a revolving door of volunteers, disrupting their emotional development and leaving them vulnerable to abuse. Many orphanages intentionally keep children in poor conditions to elicit sympathy and financial contributions. This is not care—it is exploitation.

The Need for Legislative Action
Several countries, including the UK and Australia, have recognized the dangers of orphanage tourism and have taken steps to ban it. The United States must follow suit. We need legislation that:

1. Prohibits orphanage tourism – Restricting U.S. citizens and organizations from engaging in or financially supporting orphanage tourism would cut off the demand that fuels this exploitative system.
2. Cracks down on orphanage trafficking – Laws must ensure that children are not unnecessarily separated from their families and placed in institutions for financial gain.
3. Supports family-based care – Instead of funding orphanages, resources should go toward programs that strengthen families, support kinship care, and expand foster care networks.
4. Raises awareness – Many volunteers and donors have good intentions but are unaware of the harm orphanage tourism causes. Public education campaigns can help redirect charitable efforts toward ethical and sustainable solutions.

A Call to Action
Protecting vulnerable children must be a priority. We can no longer allow orphanage tourism to thrive under the guise of charity while enabling trafficking and exploitation. The U.S. has a moral and legal obligation to act.
It’s time for lawmakers to introduce and pass legislation that bans orphanage tourism, combats child trafficking, and promotes family-based care. True support for vulnerable children means protecting them from harm—not unintentionally funding the very system that exploits them.
​
Let’s make this a priority. Let’s end orphanage tourism.

Years ago, Dan Hope from Strengthening Families and Children traveled with me to Sierra Leone to do some capacity building with the case management team at Child Reintegration Centre, our allies in Sierra Leone. In many informal conversations we had with Dan while there, he said many things to me that I found personally convicting—particularly around the responsibility we all take when we step into the space of vulnerability that surrounds a child separated from parental care, and assume the responsibility to care for that child.

"These are people's lives," he said. "And we do not play with people's lives."

Many of us started orphanages out of an abundance of good will and good intention. We're smart, educated, compassionate people. But when we step up and say "I will care for this child/these children, I will protect them and ensure they have the things that they need," we need to feel the full weight of what that commitment means. It is not just to feed and protect, and give them access to healthcare and education. This is the minimum of what a child needs. Would you be satisfied if that is all your own child received?

Children—all children—must have, and rightly deserve - love, attachment, someone to belong to, identity, personal history, culture, and connection.

To presume that we can provide all of these things to children living in another country, in an institutional setting, is put simply and candidly - hubris.

Those of us who have stood up to say that we will lead in the protection and care of children must band together to help the world understand that the best way to do that is to ensure a loving and permanent family for each and every child that finds him or herself on our roster of care. And we must guard against any activity that leads to the exploitation of these children or their stories - even "in their own best interest."

Recently, Kelly Strong, a good friend and the Chief Executive Officer of SAFE in Kenya, wrote an incredible piece highlighting a growing danger to vulnerable children—being trafficked and exploited as fundraising tools through efforts that bring them from their homes in the Global South to perform for audiences in the Global North with song, dance, and personal stories that exploit their trauma on huge stages to goad Western audiences into donating money.

Shortly after Kelly posted this courageous story on LinkedIn, Hope and Homes for Children launched an equally courageous campaign calling out the problems with these orphanage performance tours. Orphanage performance troupes bring children living in orphanages in the Global South to perform in churches and sometimes even larger venues in the UK and the US.

As Hope and Homes writes: "While performances from such children’s performance groups are presented as charitable, cultural and often religious outreach exchanges, they are raising alarm bells for how they commodify trauma, disrupt education, blur legal lines, and prop up a model of care long discredited by international standards."

What's even more alarming is that these groups aren't just popping up in Western churches—but on TV talent shows as well. Children in these shows don’t just sing and dance; they’re encouraged to share their often traumatic stories in order to "tug on the heartstrings (and the purse strings) in order to raise funds to continue the support of damaging models of care (i.e., orphanages)."

It’s not my intention to add anything new to this dialogue—I'm not sure that I could—but whatever weight I have to put behind these two important conversations shared by Kelly and Hope and Homes, and shine a light to bring others to them, I intend to. To that end, I encourage you to read both Kelly’s posts and that of Hope and Homes, and I'll share some highlights from each here, but I highly recommend you read each of the pieces linked in this post.

As Kelly writes, "Because when children are flown across borders to sing, dance, and share traumatic stories to raise money, we must ask hard questions, not just about logistics or legality… but about dignity, consent, and power."  As Kelly rightly points out, the beneficiaries in such scenarios are not the children, but "organizations, the donors, the marketing team, and even the emotional payoff donors seek."

But, as she points out, the cost is high:

• "Children being objectified as tools for income generation"
• "Performances that blur the line between culture and exploitation"
• "Narratives that reinforce harmful stereotypes and create donor dependency"
• "The unseen emotional and psychological impacts on children, including relived trauma"
• "The perpetuation of a model of fundraising that others copy, thinking it must be okay.

As actors in child protection and child welfare, we MUST adopt a first do no harm approach to this work, and our highest priority MUST be the protection of every child we serve.

As Hope and Homes points out, these orphanage performance models that "encourage [children] to recount personal trauma, often repeatedly and without proper psychological support, can cause lasting harm. Rehearsed performances risk re-traumatisation, while the children’s agency and dignity are sidelined in favour of donor and congregational appeal."

The child protection risks abound when children are removed from one setting and transported to places where they're to perform. Children often stay in the homes of church members while abroad— and what screening and child protection measures are put in place in these cases? As Hope and Homes highlights, there is an alarming lack of standardization or transparency around these practices.

Likewise, issues of consent are often not addressed at all. These performances and the advertising around them typically make extensive use of images, names, and personal stories. Since we know that 80% of children in orphanages have a living parent, and many more have extended family—were the children and their families or guardians informed or given the opportunity to refuse? Or even felt they had the right to say no?

As Kelly says: "Children are not fundraising tools. They are human beings, worthy of safety, dignity, and respect!"  And again, from Dan, "we do not play with people's lives."

When we assume the awesome and fearful responsibility to care for a child, it is our duty to honor that above all else.

When we hear the phrase child protection, many of us think of rescuing children from harm or providing shelter in the midst of crisis. While those responses are important, true child protection runs deeper—it’s about preventing harm before it happens, creating safe environments, and ensuring every child grows up in a family that can love and care for them.
At the Child Reintegration Centre (CRC) in Bo, Sierra Leone, child protection isn’t just one piece of the puzzle. It is the puzzle.

For over 25 years, the CRC has been walking alongside children and families—ensuring that vulnerable children are not only safe, but also seen, supported, and surrounded by love. The CRC began as an orphanage during the aftermath of Sierra Leone’s civil war, but as the global understanding of child welfare evolved, so did the CRC. Today, it stands as a global leader in family-based care, reintegration services, and child protection practices that prioritize prevention, permanence, and dignity.

What Does Child Protection Really Mean?
Child protection means safeguarding children from abuse, neglect, exploitation, and violence. But it also means working with families and communities to address the root causes that put children at risk—like poverty, family breakdown, illness, and systemic inequality.

The CRC’s programs reflect this broader understanding. Their case management team works directly with families to identify risk factors and develop family-strengthening plans. They provide access to education, healthcare, psychosocial support, and economic empowerment opportunities—all of which reduce the likelihood that a child will be separated from their family.

From Orphanage to Family: A Child’s Right to Belong
One of the most powerful expressions of child protection is reintegration—the process of safely and permanently returning children to family care. The CRC has helped hundreds of children leave institutional care and reunite with biological family members or join loving foster or adoptive homes.

This work is rooted in both international standards and Biblical values: children belong in families. And protecting their right to family is one of the most meaningful ways we can safeguard their future.

Leading the Way in Safe, Ethical Care for Children
The CRC’s approach has become a model not just for Sierra Leone, but for the entire region, and even the world. Through partnerships with government agencies, churches, and global networks, they are helping to raise the bar for what ethical, sustainable child protection looks like.

Every home visit, every school tuition payment, every trauma-informed counseling session is part of a larger vision: a world where children are safe, families are strong, and every child knows they are loved and protected—not just in moments of crisis, but every day.

How You Can Help
When you support the CRC, you’re not just giving to a program—you’re investing in a movement. You’re saying yes to prevention over reaction, family over institution, and dignity over dependency. You’re helping build a future where child protection is more than a goal—it’s a guarantee.