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. 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, children are said to live in these facilities, although no one seems to know for sure.
At Ukrainian Camp, Orphans Learn Painful Past Doesn't Mean Grim Future
Children with disabilities at risk in eastern Ukraine - UNICEF Connect
By James Nye. David and Lisa Bundy knew adopting four orphans at once from Ukraine would be stressful. But it wasn't until the bullets started flying and homemade bombs exploded outside the apartment where they were staying in the capital of the eastern European country that the Alabama couple discovered just how stressful it could be. Last week, the Bundys, of Montgomery, stayed in an apartment in Kiev a half-mile from Independence Square, the center of violent protests. Scroll Down for Video.
Children during an arts and crafts session at the orphanage. Kotovsk, December 9, Driving fast, Maxim Timotin jolts us along the pitted and potholed road to his old orphanage.
These are external links and will open in a new window. When orphans in Ukraine reach adulthood, some are deemed "incapacitated" - a label that consigns them to a life in institutions. But many of these young people may have nothing wrong with them at all.