Ukraine Struggles To Locate Thousands Of Orphans Scattered By War

Tanya, 12, who is autistic and does not speak, watches other children play at a facility for people with special needs in Odesa on June 7. Tanya, like nine in 10 of the children under Ukraine's care, is a "social orphan," a child whose parents are unable to care for them or who are denied parental rights under Ukrainian law.

Tanya, seen here interacting with a carer, first entered the Odesa orphanage in 2018 at age 8, after her parents divorced and her mother had a second child. Citing their inability to look after her, Tanya's parents signed away their parental rights.  

Poverty is the main reason children are put into institutions. Since 1990, Ukraine's rate of children in institutions has increased almost fourfold, while it was flat or fell in neighboring EU countries.

When Russia launched its invasion on February 24, Ukraine had a network of over 700 orphanages and boarding schools with more than 105,000 children in its care. According to UNICEF, around half of these children are disabled.

Amid the chaos of war, 100,000 children were released from institutional care to their families or guardians. Some children, such as this child being assisted by a carer, ended up at the Lelechenya (Little Stork) rehabilitation center in Dzhuriv.

Ukraine's National Social Service, tasked with overseeing children's rights, said it had done "everything possible to preserve the lives and health of children and prevent them from being left in the epicenter of hostilities."  

But child-protection workers and international organizations told Reuters they were concerned about the lack of information or record-keeping by Ukrainian ministries on where the children were. Tanya, seen here sleeping in her new home, was missing from national databases for 40 days.

Ukraine's state record-keeping system was not capable of tracking or tracing children sent home from institutions, according to the Government Reform Support project in Ukraine (SURGe), a Canadian government-funded agency contracted by the National Social Service to help support it.
 

Instead, the database held general information such as whether the children had siblings, disabilities, or were eligible for adoption. The task was complicated by the fact that these institutions come under three different ministries, with responsibility spread across 24 regions, a SURGe spokesperson said.

United Nations officials have expressed alarm about the well-being of children with disabilities under Ukraine's care. Besides "known problems" within the system, the UN Human Rights Commission's experts said, "there is now a lack of information regarding the children's whereabouts."  UN officials are concerned that these children might be exposed to violence or human trafficking.

Following an order to evacuate, Tanya was moved from her home of four years in Odesa on June 15. Tanya and the orphanage's remaining four disabled children traveled some 800 kilometers by rail to a different state institution far from the fighting, along with others from local homes.
 

The 11-hour train journey succeeded in bringing Tanya to safety at the Lelechenya rehabilitation center in Dzhuriv.

However, Ukraine and UNICEF are still trying to trace some 26,000 other children.