Tina Rosenberg, a former editorial writer for the New York Times, has sought to convince “volunteer tourists” from wealthy countries that when they work in orphanages in low-income African and Latin American countries, they are “perpetuat[ing] a harmful system” and inadvertently leaving the affected children with “lasting pain.” She says that all orphanages in the United States and elsewhere—“even the best” ones—have “damaged” the children in their care, and that they should be shuttered because of it.

Ms. Rosenberg writes that she drew upon “decades of research” to make her argument. The findings that she cites generalize orphanages and are global in scope, saying that “[r]ich countries closed their orphanages long ago,” but poor countries have not caught up—and in fact are seeing an expansion of orphanages.