This step reflects a broader policy direction aimed at strengthening oversight mechanisms while reassessing the role and future of institutional care.
Beyond the immediate implications of these closures, the decision invites a wider discussion on two interrelated issues: the effectiveness of oversight mechanisms governing care institutions, and the feasibility of gradually reducing reliance on institutional care in favor of family-based alternatives.
Strengthening Oversight and Monitoring Mechanisms
The closure of unlicensed care homes constitutes an important corrective measure. For years, the absence of effective oversight allowed some institutions to operate outside regulatory frameworks, exposing vulnerable groups, particularly children, the elderly, and persons with disabilities, to varying degrees of risk.
Equally noteworthy, however, is the closure of licensed institutions found to be in violation. This highlights a critical reality: licensing alone does not guarantee compliance, nor does it ensure adequate standards of care. Violations may occur even within formally regulated institutions, highlighting the necessity of continuous and independent monitoring
In this context, the ةinistry’s adoption of sudden, unannounced inspections revealed cases of poor care standards, underfunding, and in some instances, the misuse of donations, raising legitimate questions regarding financial transparency and accountability.
The ministry’s renewed emphasis on enforcing Law No. 149 of 2019 and its executive regulations, particularly provisions governing the licensing of donation collection, reinforces the importance of aligning financial practices with legal requirements. Effective enforcement not only protects beneficiaries but also safeguards public trust in civil work institutions.
Moving forward, inspection outcomes could be systematically integrated into a centralized database, particularly in light of the protocol signed between the National Council for Human Rights and the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) in August 2025.
The availability of disaggregated data on children deprived of parental care, elderly residents, persons with disabilities, and juveniles would support evidence-based policymaking by enabling authorities to distinguish between institutions suffering from low donations, thus prompting targeted awareness-raising campaigns, and those misusing resources, thus necessitating corrective or enforcement measures such as conditional license renewal, or, where necessary, full closure.
In short, consistent oversight and monitoring mechanisms do not merely justify closures; they force improvement where improvement is possible and identify institutions that are beyond reform.
Deinstitutionalization: Policy Vision and Social Reality
The ministry’s strategic direction toward promoting foster family care reflects international best practices and aligns with the objectives of the draft Alternative Care Law. Reducing reliance on institutional care as a default option is an important policy goal, particularly in advancing children’s right to family-based environments. Nevertheless, the practical implementation of deinstitutionalization presents notable challenges. While the number of children residing in care homes has decreased as a result of expanded foster care policies, not all children are eligible for placement in alternative families.
Hence, complete deinstitutionalization, if pursued prematurely, risks doing more harm than good for several reasons: first, care homes exist primarily to provide immediate protection for abandoned newborns and children until alternative families are found. Eliminating this safety net would increase the risk of children ending up on the streets. Second, they also house older children and young adults (over the age of 18), who have primarily spent their lives in care homes, and often remain dependent on institutional support, given the absence of viable alternatives.
That is, their reduced chances to be fostered, and their dependence on institutional support due to limited access to quality education, employment opportunities, and independent housing. For them, the sudden closure of care homes without transitional arrangements could result in social and economic vulnerability. Third, care homes remain a critical response to poverty, family breakdown, and deep-rooted systemic inequalities that cannot be resolved overnight.
Full deinstitutionalization is unrealistic in the short to medium term unless practices within and outside care homes are addressed. At the institutional level, the administrative staff and social workers often rely on care homes as a primary source of income. This creates incentives to maintain existing structures and, in some cases, to misrepresent children’s situations to delay or prevent placements, even when broader policy favors deinstitutionalization.
At the family level, foster care practices further limit opportunities for older children, whereby potential foster families overwhelmingly prefer newborns or very young children, while adolescents and young orphaned adults are rarely placed in family-based care. Together, these top-down and bottom-up realities make immediate, full deinstitutionalization impractical and highlight the need for accurate, consistently monitored data to protect children and support effective foster placements.
The real policy question, therefore, is not whether care homes should exist, but how they should operate.
On the level of the wider social realm, abandonment has not ceased, poverty persists, and unwanted pregnancies continue. Until these root causes are addressed, institutional care will remain necessary, but it must be transitional, denormalized, and strictly regulated.
* The writer is a development professional with a Master’s degree in Public Policy.
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