The separated Ukrainian children at risk of predators, and misguided attempts to adopt babies – iNews

As more than three and a half million people flee to the borders of Ukraine, many of them are being helped to safety by the enormous efforts of charities, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), friends, relatives and kind individuals with the drive to do something useful.

Yet there are also Ukrainians running for their lives who are at serious risk of being preyed upon by traffickers or predators once they arrive. They are under threat from people who see in the desperation of the displaced a financial opportunity.

Aagje Leven is secretary general at Missing Children Europe and is deeply concerned about children disappearing in the chaos of this conflict.

Its very hard to fathom that when war and disaster happen there are people who try to exploit that, she tells i, and it seems to be a constant. There are trafficking networks already present in Ukraine as well as border countries, as there are in every country, and they are the first ones to see the situation and take advantage of it.

Leven says that she is already aware of cases where people are posing as volunteers for NGOs and preying on children.

These people are catching children who are on the move trying to get to the borders, and those trafficking networks might convince parents to give them power of attorney or convince the child to travel with them. Thats a huge risk, and its very difficult for the border guards to screen all of that.

Charities working at the border report that the majority of children are accompanied by their mother, perhaps an aunt, or an extended family member, friends or volunteers. Children with their mothers, which is the best-case scenario, may still be at risk of exploitation, but its the unaccompanied children who are likely to be the most vulnerable.

According to Unicef, more than 500 unaccompanied children were identified crossing from Ukraine into Romania from 24 February to 17 March. The true number of separated children who have fled Ukraine to neighbouring countries is likely to be much higher, and separated children are especially vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation.

What makes this such a pressing issue is that 28 per cent of identified victims of trafficking globally are children, and child-protection experts believe that in the Ukrainian war, children would likely account for an even higher proportion of potential trafficking victims given that children and women represent nearly all of the refugees who have fled the country so far, as the men have stayed behind to fight.

Weve never seen such an influx of refugees on European grounds at such short notice, says Leven, so there are a lot of gaps in terms of registering every child who crosses the border, and accounting for everyone. People would have their IDs checked, but they wouldnt be able to be registered.

There were minimal checks to see if children were travelling with people they knew. It was a completely overwhelming situation, but the organisation at the borders is getting better now. Most of the authorities have been dealing with it as best they can, but its just not possible to do this completely right from the beginning.

It takes some time for a government to respond, to adapt to a new situation like this, and so people fall through the gaps.

Its impossible for a child-protection system to protect the child that theyre not aware of, says Leven.

As reports have emerged of suspicious behaviour from people waiting at the borders, police at the busy border crossing of Medyka in Poland have had a larger presence in recent days, to check the identity of volunteers and drivers offering lifts to refugees, but in the immediacy of the devastation of war, the screening processes are far from foolproof.

Irena Dawid-Olczyk, chief executive of the Warsaw branch of anti-trafficking NGO La Strada, told the BBCs Katya Adler that she and her colleagues were working on a case involving Ukrainian girls being offered plane tickets to Mexico, Turkey, the UAE, without ever having met the men inviting them. Charities have also raised concerns that as much as people are in great need of shelter and safety, and the kindness of people opening their homes under the UK refugee scheme is heartening, it could also provide an opportunity for abusers.

There are also other long-term risks for women and children, which will have ripple effects for a long time to come. While there is the immediate concern of trafficking, which is involuntary, other refugees struggling to reach safety may pay smugglers who promise them safe crossing, only to be forced into modern slavery later.

Philippa Southwell is a specialist human-trafficking and modern-slavery lawyer, who was called to give oral evidence as a legal expert in the Home Affairs Committee modern-slavery inquiry.

Cases like the ones I work on, she tells i, often come about from a desperate person fleeing conflict, paying someone willingly to smuggle them into a country. They pay an agent to facilitate getting them to another country or destination, but its when they become debt bonded, that exploitation takes place.

So, for example, to get somebody from Vietnam to the UK, it would cost someone around 50,000 which theyd pay to a smuggler. The average Vietnamese worker cant afford that so they will pay a deposit to arrange the travel, under the agreement that when they get to the UK they will work to pay off that debt. So then theyve become trafficked, put to work in domestic labour or cannabis farms, and that debt is actually never paid off. Its an invisible debt and the traffickers add interest and every time the journey fails at a certain level, more more money is added to the debt. So thats when an agreement becomes an exploitative situation.

If displaced Ukrainians are exploited in the UK, the trafficking situations wont come to the attention of the authorities for many months or years, until someone has liberated themselves from the situation.

I dont think its not happening, she says, I just think its premature, and these cases will begin to emerge six to 12 months down the line. There will be people who have fled from war whose immigration status is not settled, who will work illegally, or be exploited by cash-in-hand jobs which dont pay minimum wage, forced into criminal activity.

We see that very often with Vietnamese nationals coming to the UK, says Southwell.

They may not have been trafficked, they may have been smuggled, because they are desperate. They then engage with individuals who will exploit them in different sorts of criminality.

Many of Southwells clients have been exploited for many years. They feel they cant talk to the authorities because they have this mistrust and fear for the authorities because they dont want to be sent back home. They remain embedded in this underworld of exploitation because they cant liberate themselves. Its a vicious cycle.

So what can well-intentioned people at the borders do to help as the war rages on and more people flee their shelled homes? The best thing, says Leven, is to listen to the authorities, make yourself known to them properly.

Working with the authorities is the only way to make sure youre doing the right thing, she says.

Register, get the wristband that shows youve been checked, show your ID to people, work with the official authorities. If you identify an unaccompanied child, dont leave the child alone, keep them with you, until you can hand them over to official child-protection services that you can verify.

Sometimes its as simple as asking someone claiming to be a volunteer to identify themselves, and if theyre unwilling to show their ID, you know somethings wrong. If you identify an individual or situation that you think is fishy, alert the authorities, get them involved.

Of course, most of the volunteers have good intentions, says Leven, and she saw some great work being done at the border crossings. We saw a child who was cared for very well and all the right things were done for him.

Yet sometimes, even when people have good intentions, they are not necessarily good for the at-risk children.

Im getting people from other countries calling me and saying, I want to adopt a Ukrainian baby. With the Ukrainian children that we find, my job is to connect them with family, were not looking for people who want to adopt babies. This is not about adoption, its about caring for them, protecting them as near to their home country as possible until we can connect them with people from their cities, people from their communities who know them and can take care of them in safety.

Its all incredibly challenging. The key is to look forward to handle the next stage of this devastation.

When Leven was in Poland earlier this week, things felt a little more manageable on the border compared to a few weeks ago. That means this is a good time to discuss official structures to train people, she says, to get more capacity, for officials to work more closely with organisations with Unicef and other NGOs.

After all, as the war rages on, there are every day more women and children at the border desperately putting their trust into strangers they hope will help them to safety.

For more information visit https://missingchildreneurope.eu/

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The separated Ukrainian children at risk of predators, and misguided attempts to adopt babies - iNews