Why we must heed JK’s words of wisdom

LONG before JK Rowling got involved in petty, interminable Twitter spats about the Union, she was campaigning to end the practice of caged beds in orphanages in Eastern Europe.

In fact, Rowling has single-handedly changed policy on orphanages and education in a number of countries since the founding of her charity, Lumos.

Thanks to her, orphans in Moldova are no longer kept in institutions, the Ukrainian education curriculum has been improved and more Haitian children are attending school than ever. Across the world, more than 20,000 kids have been spared from entering institutions and almost 2,700 children’s lives have been saved by removing them from dangerous situations.

The charity’s goal is to have all children removed from institutions by 2050.

So perhaps it is not surprising that Rowling has spoken out over the increasing, and dangerous, fashion for young people to become volunteers at overseas orphanages.

Describing it as ‘orphanage tourism’, she pointed out that, unwitting as they may be, such do-gooders may be propping up institutions that are cruel to children and render them vulnerable to abuse and trafficking.

‘Institutionalisation is one of the worst things that you can possibly do to a child,’ she said. ‘It has huge effects on their normal development and it massively impacts their life chances.’

Of all Rowling’s achievements, her unwavering commitment to ending the persecution of young people in orphanages is perhaps the most impressive of all. We should listen to her.