War makes kids vulnerable to human traffickers, abuse

Russia’s war in Ukraine has created an opening for exploitation of the country’s estimated 100,000 orphans.

It’s a chance for traffickers to slip in, find vulnerable children and snatch them up amid the chaos. It’s ugly. It’s evil. And it’s real.

According to World Vision, “Children are trafficked for purposes such as domestic labor, armed groups, criminal activity and even adoption.” Yes, that is correct, “even adoption.”

I was in Ukraine as the war broke out. My organization, New Horizons for Children, has worked with their orphaned children over the past decade by providing aid, trauma-informed care and educational experiences.

Within moments of Russia’s invasion, our contacts in local orphanages and boarding schools were receiving calls from strangers offering to take the children and provide care and safe keeping in neighboring countries.

We’ve all seen it on our news, too—nonprofits and good-hearted people racing to take orphaned and vulnerable children quickly out of the country.

But have we stopped to ask if this rush to act involved long-term solutions for the children’s well-being?

Were they provided proper documents so that they could return to Ukraine or be reunited with siblings? Were they given the option to be relocated to safer areas of Ukraine? What were potential unintended consequences?

This war has created a crisis inside the hearts of people who want to help Ukraine’s children. Our quick actions are understandable, but quick action alone is not a substitute for the best interests of these most-vulnerable children.

In my field of psychology, we are constantly assessing how fear impacts the brain.

We understand that fear triggers the amygdala which alerts the nervous system to set off the body’s fear response.

This results in quick actions meant to help you survive. While this is happening, other areas of our brain that impact reasoning and judgment are less activated. In this heightened state, even good people are more prone to make poor decision that they normally would not pursue.

In an ongoing crisis filled with fear we must be very cautious.

Case in point: when we see Russian military forces abducting 150 innocent children in Mariupol, our emotions kick in.

We jump to a fear reaction and respond without pausing and thinking clearly about the decision. We react with efforts to save any children in Ukraine, moving

them without their caregivers or personal documents into other countries.

The result: in Ukraine, good-intentioned people are inadvertently participating in trafficking children.

Compassion and passion for the parentless are important, but not at the expense of wisdom and logic.

Taking children out of the country apart from a formalized government program or pre-approved adoption is illegal, regardless of circumstances, and could place these orphaned children at greater risk.

In the early days of the war, New Horizons for Children quickly shifted our mission in how we provide support services for Ukraine’s orphans.

Under our new memorandum of understanding with the Lviv Regional Military Authority, New Horizons has created safe housing for over 1,000 orphans and caregivers in safer regions within their home country with more safe havens in development.

This core infrastructure empowers Ukrainians to care for their country’s children and to support the children’s well-being with familiar relationships and an education system reflective of their culture, language and heritage.

It also empowers foreign entities and non-governmental organization with the ability to save lives through rapid evacuations and relocations of the children within Ukraine until more planning can take place that best supports their futures.

We must remember these are Ukraine’s children first.

We urge our fellow Americans that all our decisions and good intentions recognize this critical truth. Ukraine is fighting for its future, and we can best support their efforts by equipping Ukrainians to protect and provide for their next generation of citizens.

Dr. Sherri Mcclurg is the CEO of New Horizons for Children and clinical psychologist, based in Ohio and specializing in trauma-informed care.

RODRIGO ABD/AP In the courtyard of their house, Vlad, 6, stands near the grave of his mother, who died, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine on April 4. Vlad's mother died last month when the family was forced to shelter in a basement during the occupation by the Russian army. The family still doesn't know what illness caused her death.