Families caring for quake orphans tap few benefits Kyodo (JAPAN)

Kyodo

SENDAI — Only two of the families who have taken charge of the more than 100 children orphaned by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami have applied for government benefits under the kinship foster care program, welfare ministry officials said Saturday.

The number of applicants has not increased presumably because there are still too many people missing from the disaster, which prevents people from defining themselves as foster parents because the children's real parents haven't been declared dead, an official said. Another factor, he said, may be the sheer lack of publicity about the benefits.

The number of orphans in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima — the prefectures most severely hit by the disasters, was 141 as of Saturday. Two from Miyagi Prefecture entered child welfare facilities but the remaining 139 are being cared for by private households, many of them relatives.

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