Characteristics and impact of support to orphans and vulnerable children in Northern Thailand : a secondary analysis of Thailand multiple indicator cluster survey, 2006

Abstract

Children who are orphaned or living away from their parents may be at increased risk of discrimination, neglect or various forms of exploitation-including harmful labor or sexual exploitation. It is important to identify OVC who are at risk, monitoring and evaluating relevant support to ensure their rights are being met. In Thailand, among families that have taken in OVC, 78.6 percent of these families received no support at all. Children whose families receive any support (medical, emotional and psychological, material, social or educational) account for 21.4 percent. The percentage of OVC whose households have received all five types of support is only 0.1 percent. This research selected six provinces in Northern Thailand to study, intended to find out the association between household’s characteristics, care taker’s characteristics, OVC’s characteristics, type of support being received and OVC’s educational and health status. Supporting OVC needs steady effort at government level as well as family and community level. The research results would provide useful information for policy makers to develop better social welfare mechanism for OVC. Families and communities which have OVC may also benefit from this research by receiving new knowledge. The research found that Thai citizenship, living arrangements, household wealth, parents’ socio-demographic characteristics, medical, material, educational support, and OVC’s disability are significantly associated with OVC’s education and health status. Among all the OVC, double orphans, maternal orphans and disabled OVC are most vulnerable. It is suggested that Thailand needs better social welfare mechanism which can provide more support to OVC, especially medical, material and educational support, for their well-being. Further study is encouraged to focus on other parts of the country in order to present the whole picture of OVC in Thailand.