Governments, faith-based groups and churches, aid agencies and volunteer tourists, who donate cash and goods to orphanages or build and refurbish children's homes and other institutions, may be inadvertently funding human trafficking.
Poor and disabled children, locked away and out of sight from families and their communities, are sitting ducks for traffickers and pedophiles. And nefarious staff are often the beneficiaries of perverse transactions where captive children are the commodity.
My organization, Disability Rights International (DRI), recently released a report -- "No Way Home: The Exploitation and Abuse of Children in Ukraine's Orphanages" -- following a three year investigation of the plight of children living in institutional care.
DRI found that children are at risk of being trafficked for sex, labor, pornography and organs in a country that is a known hub for human trafficking.
Some 82,000 children are said to live in these facilities, although no one seems to know for sure. Some Ukrainian activists put the number closer to 200,000.
The 2014 U.S. State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP) stated that, "Children in orphanages and crisis centers continue to be particularly vulnerable to trafficking within Ukraine."
Inside orphanages, DRI found rampant sexual violence, abuse and rape were commonplace. Children are often recruited directly from orphanages for sex and labor according anti-trafficking organizations in Ukraine.
"There's huge sexual abuse within the orphanages... So this is a push factor that gets children involved in sexual exploitation, even before they grow up. They're already used to sexual abuse," said a Ukraine counter-trafficking expert.
Producers of child pornography go directly to orphanages to seek out their prey. And institutionalized children with disabilities are particularly susceptible to becoming trafficked for their organs. One grandmother of a newborn with Down Syndrome was told by doctors that they could sell the baby for organs and get money.
Maria- - who grew up in an orphanage in Odessa -- fled at the age of 15, when she feared for her life.
"Children would go into the woods behind the building and disappear," she told DRI. "Every year 10 to 12 children went missing. We thought it was rapists and murderers. Some children were found dead but nothing was done. The staff never asked 'why'?"
In notorious orphanage number five, a "sauna/massage parlor" was run out of the basement of the facility where the children were bought and sold for sex. The operation was shut down in 2012 but the orphanage remains open, with many of the victims still living there.
Ukraine Orphanages Feeder for Child Trafficking | HuffPost Impact
Poor and disabled children, locked away and out of sight from families and their communities, are sitting ducks for traffickers and pedophiles. And nefarious staff are often the beneficiaries of perverse transactions where captive children are the commodity.
My organization, Disability Rights International (DRI), recently released a report -- "No Way Home: The Exploitation and Abuse of Children in Ukraine's Orphanages" -- following a three year investigation of the plight of children living in institutional care.
DRI found that children are at risk of being trafficked for sex, labor, pornography and organs in a country that is a known hub for human trafficking.
Some 82,000 children are said to live in these facilities, although no one seems to know for sure. Some Ukrainian activists put the number closer to 200,000.
The 2014 U.S. State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP) stated that, "Children in orphanages and crisis centers continue to be particularly vulnerable to trafficking within Ukraine."
Inside orphanages, DRI found rampant sexual violence, abuse and rape were commonplace. Children are often recruited directly from orphanages for sex and labor according anti-trafficking organizations in Ukraine.
"There's huge sexual abuse within the orphanages... So this is a push factor that gets children involved in sexual exploitation, even before they grow up. They're already used to sexual abuse," said a Ukraine counter-trafficking expert.
Producers of child pornography go directly to orphanages to seek out their prey. And institutionalized children with disabilities are particularly susceptible to becoming trafficked for their organs. One grandmother of a newborn with Down Syndrome was told by doctors that they could sell the baby for organs and get money.
Maria- - who grew up in an orphanage in Odessa -- fled at the age of 15, when she feared for her life.
"Children would go into the woods behind the building and disappear," she told DRI. "Every year 10 to 12 children went missing. We thought it was rapists and murderers. Some children were found dead but nothing was done. The staff never asked 'why'?"
In notorious orphanage number five, a "sauna/massage parlor" was run out of the basement of the facility where the children were bought and sold for sex. The operation was shut down in 2012 but the orphanage remains open, with many of the victims still living there.
Ukraine Orphanages Feeder for Child Trafficking | HuffPost Impact
