Children Living in Institutions / Surrogate Babies - Issues that Need Attention No Matter How the Ukrainian War May End : NY Times / Care International / Tom McDermott

Sometimes it takes a war to focus attention on longstanding issues for children.  This seems to be the case now in Ukraine where recent articles are pointing to issues such as the 'surrogate baby industry' and the numbers of children living in institutions.  

According to the NY Times article below, Ukraine is one of the few countries in the world offering surrogacy services to foreigners.  Companies such as BioTexCom offer offer women around $15,000 to bear children on behalf of foreign couples.  The outbreak of the war left many of these babies stranded and the foreign couples unable to reach the children they planned to adopt. Worse, the citizenship of the newborns remains unclear, as well as questions over who are their legal guardians. 

The second article reports that Ukraine has Europe's highest number of children living in institutions, and suggests that the fate of these children has so far been largely forgotten.  It is telling that the reports are coming from Romania, a country which not so long ago itself suffered through a dramatic crisis over children living in institutions.   According to the report, there are some 100,000 children living in Ukrainian institutions.  Some are arriving unaccompanied at borders, and countries like Romania are concerned that their own institutions may be overwhelmed.

 How ever the war in Ukraine may end, the government, UNICEF and other agencies will need to address these issues.  Only under unusual and serious conditions should children be consigned to life in an institution.  Moreover, the 'surrogacy industry' needs the same scrutiny UNICEF once gave to issues such as international adoption.  

Tom

In a Kyiv Basement, 19 Surrogate Babies Are Trapped by War but Kept Alive by Nannies

KYIV, Ukraine — Down a dusty stairwell, hidden from the shelling that has become the grim background noise of Ukraine’s capital, Ludmila Yashenko fusses with the babies. There are 19 of them, sleeping or cooing in neatly arranged cribs, fed regularly from tubs of baby formula.

The kitchen has a sterilizer for bottles, while the nursery has a changing station stocked with diapers. Ms. Yashenko and other nannies bounce the babies on their laps and straighten their bibs, even as they watch television, wide-eyed, to learn the latest news from the war.

Death and destruction are rampant in Ukraine, but in this basement there is new life, if also new problems.

The babies were born to surrogate mothers, with their biological parents still outside the country. Because of the war, the citizenship of the newborns is unclear, as is the question of who their legal guardians are, since under Ukrainian law their biological parents must be present to confirm their nationality.

There is also the question of how, or if, they can possibly be taken to safety.

Elsewhere, expectant surrogate mothers are trapped by the fighting. Couples abroad have no idea how they will pick up their babies. One agent who connects would-be parents with Ukrainian women made a dash out of Kyiv with two of her clients’ newborns.





In the Kyiv basement, Ms. Yashenko and the other nannies are caring for the babies, even as they grow increasingly worried about the war raging overhead.

“Of course we cannot abandon the babies,” said Ms. Yashenko, 51. Her husband and two sons, all soldiers in Ukraine’s army, have urged her to get out of Kyiv.

“They want me to leave, but I cannot abandon my colleagues, I cannot abandon my work, I cannot abandon these babies,” she said. “I will remain here until everything is back in its place.”

Ukraine is one of relatively few countries that offer surrogacy services to foreigners. By some estimates, its industry is the largest in the world; lawyers involved in the business say about 500 women are now pregnant in Ukraine as surrogate mothers for foreign clients.

Couples in the United States, Europe, South America and China who cannot have children on their own have turned to Ukraine. Advocates say that surrogacy is safe and provides an irreplaceable service to such couples.

The business has thrived in Ukraine largely because of poverty. Surrogate mothers here typically earn about $15,000 per child. Ukraine does not allow surrogacy for same-sex couples, or for couples who wish to choose the sex of their child.

Fourteen companies offer the service in Ukraine, including BioTexCom, the largest, which is running the basement nursery in Kyiv.

https://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/fears-plight-around-100000-children-living-institutions-across-ukraine-unable-escape 

Fears for the plight of around 100,000 children living in institutions across Ukraine, unable to escape the conflict

(Bucharest, Romania March 11th, 2022) – CARE International and its Romanian partners are extremely worried for the 100,000 children currently living in institutions in Ukraine who have been largely forgotten during this crisis and remain trapped inside the country.

According to Bogdan Simion, Executive Director of CARE’s partner SERA and President of the Romanian Federation of Child Protection NGOs (FONPC): “These young boys and girls are among the most vulnerable in Ukraine right now, and little has been done to ensure they are being safely and successfully evacuated, despite them being some of the highest risk. So far around 150 children from these institutions have arrived in Romania and are being housed in specially prepared facilities across several sites into the Child Protection system of Romania. But there are real worries that as, and if, more and more are able to be evacuated the Romanian child protection system will be overwhelmed and ill-equipped to cope.”

Ukraine has the largest number of children in institutional care in Europe. Around half of children in institutional care are also living with special needs or disabilities and many are not necessarily without families. In Romania alone, 218 unaccompanied children were registered by authorities on Wednesday, March 9th.“If this continues, the capacity of national child protection systems in neighboring countries and across Europe are going to be critically overwhelmed. In Moldova, for example, authorities have been forced to reopen previously closed soviet-style orphanages in order to try and cope with new arrivals,” says Simion.

CARE International’s Romania Response Team Leader Valentina Mirza, who has been on the Romania border with teams from CARE and FONPC notes;

“Despite requirements for all unaccompanied children to be registered by local authorities at border points there are already reports of busloads of unaccompanied children showing up in countries like Italy. We heard just recently from sources that a group of 4 children from one of these institutions inside Ukraine had been traveling for 4 days, alone, to try and reach the Romanian border, without yet managing to cross. These kinds of reports are deeply troubling. Situations like this are a trafficker’s dream, especially as many will continue to transit through bordering countries to final destinations. Everything possible must be done to stop already traumatized children being further distressed.”

She adds; “more needs to be urgently done to prioritize these vulnerable groups like children in institutions in evacuation efforts and to ensure they have safe and unhindered passage to leave the country through humanitarian corridors. Authorities inside Ukraine must work to coordinate with the relevant social services in neighboring countries to facilitate this. But ultimately, the only way to ensure their safety is an immediate and lasting ceasefire.”

Currently 30-40% of those arriving to neighboring countries from Ukraine are children under the age of 14. They face a myriad of challenges and psychological traumas, not to mention the disruption to their education. On Monday 14th March children across Ukraine are expected to return to school after the holiday break and there are very real concerns, as the conflict continues, over what will happen to their education, both in the short and longer term.

CARE and FONPC will be working across Romania to ensure the delivery of emergency and protection assistance to the most vulnerable Ukrainians, including working with unaccompanied children and those arriving from institutions under the coordination of the local and central authorities.