P a g e | 55 7.5 Care for orphans (Article 25) Legislative The CPW Act at section 9 provides the same right of orphaned and vulnerable children to birth registration as other children. Section 23 provides for the circumstances in which a child will be considered in need of care and protection. Section 175 establishes residential care facilities for the care of children in need of care and protection by way of government gazettement. Fostering and adoption are provided as alternative forms of care in sections 51 & 52. Administrative The Strategic Plan for OVC 2003 and the VC Policy of 2006 provide the necessary framework for action guidelines for stakeholders in provision of services and facilities. MoSD developed and trained residential care facility staff in the Standards of Care Guidelines for Residential Care Facilities. The standards presently are at a moderate level and the GoL intends to raise the expected standard once facilities have had an opportunity to reach the current standard. Orphans are eligible beneficiaries of all the aforementioned public assistance services such as bursaries, cash grants, food packages and subventions paid to residential care facilities. They are also often recipients of services from community organisations such as Habitat for Humanity and World Vision. Progress With the Standard of Care Guidelines and its associated monitoring and evaluation tool, there is better registration and monitoring of care facilities. Two care facilities who did not meet the requisite standard were closed in 2012. There is now less focus on orphans as a class in programming and shift towards recognition of vulnerable children more broadly. With this there has been an integration of social safety nets to minimise duplication of efforts. Services provided to OVC – including orphans OVC Service Area No. OVC Served Food Aid Educational Support Health Care Psycho-Social Services Protection Services Financial Assistance Other (includes shelter, basic needs, infrastructure) support 188,988 354,922 7,352 37,443 10,006 37,045 15,252 Source: (UNAIDS, UNICEF, USAID & WFP, 2004; Tamasane, 2010)