Central Asian countries convened this week at a forum hosted by the Government of Uzbekistan to strengthen social services and promote the well-being of children, families, and vulnerable communities across the region
TASHKENT/GENEVA, 5 September 2024 – Government officials, academia, and child rights organizations today called for greater investment in social services across Central Asia, emphasizing the critical role these services play in preventing family separation, supporting vulnerable populations, and fostering sustainable communities.
The call to action was announced during the forum Building Sustainable Communities in Central Asia: Promoting the Well-being of Children and Families through Social Work and Social Services. The forum was hosted in Tashkent by the Government of Uzbekistan this week and convened by Uzbekistan’s National Agency for Social Protection, UNICEF and Columbia University.
The forum aimed to enhance social services for vulnerable groups including children, persons with disabilities, survivors of gender-based violence, and older persons; and address high rates of children growing up in residential care facilities in Central Asia. It concluded with a call for governments to ensure equitable access to essential services for all, particularly the most vulnerable.
The call to action urged investment in the social service workforce to deliver high-quality, child-centered, and gender-responsive services. Additionally, governments were encouraged to implement programmes to address violence against women and girls, and to establish services that prevent family separation, support family care, and gradually close large-scale residential care facilities for children.
The call to action also underscored the need for regional cooperation, awareness-raising and empowerment of children, young people, families and communities to drive change.
“Our position is clear. No child should ever be placed in alternative care because of poverty, disability or challenging behaviour, or because their family lacks access to services they need to care for their own child at home. To achieve this, we need a comprehensive and coherent child and family social service system. This system must be rooted in strong child protection frameworks, that prioritizes the family as the central unit,” said Regina De Dominicis, UNICEF Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia.
UNICEF’s recently released policy brief on Keeping families together in Central Asia notes that the rate of children living in residential care facilities is double the global average. Currently 60,000 children across five countries in Central Asia live in residential care facilities.
UNICEF works with governments and partners across the region to help keep families together and support family- and community-based care. This includes developing and implementing deinstitutionalisation policies and programmes, scaling up protection and family support services to prevent children being separated from their families, promoting family- and community-based care and family reunification and reintegration and safe transition to independent life. UNICEF also works with governments and national statistical offices to improve the availability, comparability and quality of data on children in alternative care. ///nCa, 7 September 2024 (in cooperation with UNICEF Turkmenistan, photo credit – Sputnik Tajikistan)