THE INFLUENCE OF PARENTAL SURVIVAL ON ACCESS TO CARE AND SUPPORT BY ORPHANS AND VULNERABLE CHILDREN IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The care needs for orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) have already reached crisis level, with more than 40 million children in Sub-Saharan Africa being estimated to be orphaned, and many more made vulnerable by the HIV epidemic. One of the challenges faced income countries like Nigeria that has increased OVC populations is the need to assist families to care for these children. Care and support received by the OVC are being largely driven by nongovernmental organisations and are limited in scope and size, with gaps in quality and consistency of care provided. This study determines the proportion of OVC who received support, the types of support received and compares how the support received by the OVC varies with their parental survival status. This was a secondary data analysis of the 2008 NDHS. The primary survey was a cross sectional study using a stratified two-stage cluster design consisting of 888 clusters, 286 in the urban and 602 in the rural areas. This study used data from children aged 0 to 17years, who participated in the 2008 National Demographic Health Survey in Nigeria. Data were analysed using univariate, bivariate and logistic regression. Of the 79202 children, 329 (0.4%) were double orphans, 4394 (6%) were single orphans and 6930 (8.7%) were vulnerable children. Among the double orphans, material support was the most received support (4.2%) and social support was the least support received (0.8%). None of the double orphans received all the four possible supports (medical, emotional, material and social) and 94.2% of the double orphans did not receive any type of support. Among the single orphans analysed, emotional support was the most received support (7.8%) while social support was the least support received (1.8%). Only 0.3% of the single orphans received all the four possible types of support while 91.1 % did not receive any type of support. Among the vulnerable children, emotional support was the support mostly received (6.9%) while social support was the least support received (1.8%). While none of the vulnerable children received all the four possible types of support, 97% did not receive any of the four types of supports. As regard parental survival status of the orphans and valuerable children, emotional support was mostly received by the OVC. Single orphans were 2.1 times more likely to receive emotional supports compared to the double orphans (95% Cl, 1.104 - 4.005). The reception of other supports was almost the same for the different parental survival level, but they were not significant. This study found that reception of support by the OVC does not vary with the parental survival status. Creation of awareness on need for support of OVC is urgently needed. Government, nongovernmental organisations, communities, families and religious organisation and philanthropist should be encouraged to provide support and care for OVC in Nigeria.