P a g e | 35 Where a child resides will be a decision ultimately made by the Children's Court or High Court, in the case of adoptions and will be made in consideration of the best interests of the child. Administrative Another form of alternative care is informal fostering without an order of the court and kinship care where children are taken in by extended family members. Given the level of poverty in Lesotho this occurs less and less frequently as families struggle to provide for their own biological children without the added cost of an extra child to maintain. Children who are born to an incarcerated mother in a correctional centre are sent to a residential care facility or to live with extended family when they reach the age of two (2) years. This is to prevent them from being kept in detention with the mother beyond infancy. Difficulties There are an array of social factors which contribute to a child's separation from parents. Poverty is both a cause of children being separated from their parents as well as a reason that alternative forms of care such a fostering do not work well in Lesotho. Resource and geographic restrictions make the funding and regulation of residential care facilities challenging. Culturally accepted promiscuity and discordant partners owing to the HIV epidemic add to the escalating rates of divorce, leaving children without both parents. Alcohol abuse and gender based violence in the home causes children to be removed. It is also an accepted practice that a child goes to find work of their own to support their family. On a broader level, where children are separated from their parents for whatever reason the referral mechanisms thereafter are weak, if not non-existent. Very few children are placed in residential care facilities under court orders. MoSD are however improving their monitoring of residential care facilities and their record keeping of details of children in alternative care. Inadequate coordination makes it difficult to capitalise on government interventions. 6.3 Family reunification and environment (Article 25,2b) children deprived of their family Legislative The CPW Act provides that children have the right to live with parents, except where not in their best interests. Where children are removed under section 23 when in need of care and protection, or as a result of being in conflict with the law, they are done so for as short a time as possible.