The Background, Dilemma and Path for Buddhist Charities to Engage in Social Protection of the Children in Plight

The state, the market, the family and social organizations play exchangeable and mutually complimentary roles in provision of social welfare to children. The Buddhist charities play an increasingly important role in offering social protection to the children in plight, from ensuring the basic livelihood for the children and meeting the children’s need for development to guaranteeing the children social security and encouraging and facilitating the children’s social engagement. Due to the constraints of charity systems, the stereotypical impression about religions and the defects in the internal governance structure of the Buddhist charities, such charities face a host of problems in joining in the endeavor to protect the children in plight, such as the failure to get registered in a timely and legal manner, their marginal existence leading to inadequate protection to the children in plight and the distortion of their organization culture. This article, based on a case study of Hongde Homeland offering aid to the orphans in poverty-stricken mountainous areas, explores the background and strategy for the Buddhist charities to protect the children in plight and makes policy proposals on the appropriate ways to offer the children in plight religious welfare as a part of social protection.