1 in 10 rescued Ukrainian children sexually abused

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Save Ukraine Centre, an NGO rescuing children from the frontlines and occupied territories, estimates that one in ten of rescued children has suffered sexual abuse — including cases of rape and forced pregnancy.

Staff say the trauma is overwhelming, part of what they describe as a wider effort to break Ukrainian identity and trust. "How can you abuse the most vulnerable?" asks Alina Dmytrenko, the organisation's government relations officer.

FEATURED STORY

One in 10 rescued Ukrainian children sexually abused, warns NGO

Sian Norris

In the suburbs outside Kyiv, a four-year-old boy whizzes up and down a shared garden on his bike as his father watches from a wheelchair. The man is a double amputee, having lost both legs in a Russian drone strike on their home in Kherson. The same strike killed the boy's mother.

Nearby, a slightly older child sits outside a modular home. He has the chubby cheeks of most boys his age, and a shock of thick black hair that matches his black eyes. It's his pose that catches your attention, though; his arms wrapped tight around his legs, his chin resting on his knees as he huddles himself up to try and keep out the threats of a dangerous world.

Almost all that either child has ever known in their short lives is war: sirens, shelling, violence and fear.

The children and their families were rescued from the occupied eastern territories of Ukraine by the Save Ukraine Centre, an NGO that helps families escape Russian occupation, returns children abducted by Russia, and provides temporary housing as well as psychological and social support to help families move on and live independently.

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Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the centre has rescued over 100,000 children from the frontlines and more than 1,000 from the occupied territories and Russia, through unofficial routes and brave, special operations. It estimates that one in 10 of these children has experienced sexual abuse. The victims, of all ages and sexes, include girls who have been raped and suffered forced pregnancy, "so they will give birth to future Russian soldiers," said Alina Dmytrenko, Save Ukraine's government relations officer.

"We have these cases which are very sensitive," she confirmed. "It is a system. It is part of Russia's aim when it comes to children: to break Ukrainian identity and trust. To turn Ukrainians into Russians. All the children who come here are traumatised, afraid to talk, to express emotion. But with sexual abuse, all of this is much heavier."

"Russia is specifically targeting children," she added. "It is shocking. How can you abuse the most vulnerable?"

Save Ukraine has a small centre in Kyiv, where it works with victims of sexual abuse rescued from the occupied territories or from inside Russia, collecting forensic evidence and interviews, which it then shares with prosecutors, Ukraine's attorney general, the Ministry of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

With an estimated 1.6 million children still living under occupation, and at least 35,000 Ukrainian children stolen and forcibly removed to Russia, according to data from the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University (this is likely an underestimate, and Russian authorities claim the figure is higher), the number of child sexual abuse victims is in the thousands.

To meet the demand, Save Ukraine is building a new Children's Justice Centre within its main premises. Construction came to a halt when US president Donald Trump cut off USAID funding shortly after entering the White House in January of this year. The NGO lost $2m in income overnight, although work is starting again thanks to new funding partners in Belgium and Germany.

"Children need to have a safe space to heal from sexual abuse," said Dmytrenko. "But we also need to help them achieve justice." By collecting evidence and witness statements in one centre, with experts providing psychological support, they avoid retraumatising child sexual abuse victims who otherwise have to recount their abuse to numerous officials investigating war crimes. "It's a new way, and one we want to replicate."

Restoring safety

Almost 180 of the rescued children the Save Ukraine Centre supports are orphans.

"We rescued a grandson and grandmother from the occupied part of Kherson," Dmytrenko said. "Both his parents were killed in a Russian drone strike. They are both so traumatised that she cannot tell her grandson his parents are dead."

Working to help children overcome trauma is Save Ukraine's psychologist Svitlana Kukura. "The children are very closed, so I work with them on visualisation so they can express how they feel," she said. "Many of the younger children have cognitive issues."

This includes problems with memory, as well as issues linked to untreated concussions from shelling.

"They don't feel safe, they feel very scared so the main idea is to create a sense of safety," Kukura said. "Each child has experienced some kind of violation or difficult experience. Some of them have trauma from when Russian soldiers told them they will be taken away from their parents and they will be alone. Some witnessed Russian soldiers harm their parents inside their own homes."

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A report authored by Save Ukraine and the UK charity War Child features harrowing testimonies from children who have witnessed atrocities while living in occupation. One 16-year-old boy from Kherson shared how he was forced to watch Russian soldiers throw his father, his brothers and sisters-in-law "into a pit" after their "pro-Russian neighbours" reported them for being Ukrainian. "In the pit, they had just one mattress, and weren't allowed to sleep or use the toilet," he said. "It was a trench with no exits covered with a roof, with a door like in prison." The boy's family were detained in the pit for a week.

Under occupation, children are forced to attend Russian schools, where they are taught pro-Russian propaganda and disinformation about Ukraine. They are also sent to camps designed to turn Ukrainian children into Russian soldiers. "We have children who were told they were going to summer camps, only they were military camps," said Kukura.

A 17-year-old girl from Kherson who was sent to one of these camps described how children would be "beaten or thrown into a cold pool" if they 'misbehaved' by saying "glory to Ukraine", having pro-Ukrainian symbols, or contacting anybody in Ukraine. "As punishment, they were forced to pull waist-high weeds or dig fields," she added.

For some, the abuse and torture are far more severe. "The hardest thing for me is remembering the death of my friend," said an 18-year-old boy from Kherson, who is part of Save Ukraine's programme for those who were under-18 when living under occupation but are now young adults. "The Russians found a message thread with Ukrainian soldiers on his phone and took him to the commandant's office [...] They ripped out his teeth and eyelids, cut off his fingers [...] He couldn't survive the torture. Later, the news said he died of a 'blood clot.' But the truth is, they killed him."

To cut the occupied regions off from the rest of Ukraine, Russia has imposed an information blackout, banning telecommunications and Ukrainian media. It is designed to make people believe Ukraine has abandoned them. When I visited Izium in September 2023, a year after the city was liberated, I was told how residents had been fed propaganda that Ukraine had surrendered. Seeking more information, they went to a hill outside the city – the only place they could get phone and internet connection to contact loved ones or read Ukrainian news – where, they said, Russian snipers were stationed, ready to shoot them.

Dmytrenko described how one 16-year-old boy, who was separated from his mother and eventually rescued by Save Ukraine, was told that "Ukrainian Nazis would eat him" if he escaped back to Ukraine. He was old enough to know it was unlikely to be true, but young enough for the threats to terrify him.

"We have to be here to show they have a safe place to come, they have not been abandoned, we are waiting for them and we will support them," insisted Dmytrenko.

Genocide and war crimes

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against Russian President Vladimir Putin and the country's commissioner for children's rights, Maria Lvova Belova, for war crimes over their child abduction programme. In February 2024, the International Court of Justice found a claim made by Ukraine that Russia is committing genocide was admissible.

"Article II of the UN genocide convention specifies the actions, any of which, if committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, constitute a genocide," Ukrainian academic Yuliya Yurchenko, senior lecturer in poltical economy at the University of Greenwich, told openDemocracy.

"These actions include forcibly transferring children of the group to another group, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, such as Russian soldiers raping Ukrainian women in order for them not to give birth to Ukrainians, killing members of the group and causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. While it may take years to officially recognise Russia's actions as a genocide, the points above leave no doubt."

This has been echoed by American academic and author Timothy Snyder, who, one year into the war, told the United Nations Security Council: "We can see that there is a war of aggression, crimes against humanity, and genocide."

As courts pick over the evidence, including that provided by Save Ukraine, the war grinds on and the centre's work gets harder. Russia is making it increasingly difficult for the centre's team to reach families in need of rescue: forcing individuals to use a Russian-made messaging app and demanding that anyone who wants to leave the occupied territories to have Russian identity documents. For a centre that relies on word of mouth, a hotline and a secure messaging app to arrange rescues, these restrictions are deeply concerning.

Despite these challenges, Dmytrenko and the team at Save Ukraine are determined to keep going, not just for the children's sake, but for the sake of all of Europe.

"Diplomacy is not working at getting the children back," said Dmytrenko. "Russia will not stop at Ukraine. They are kidnapping and raising child soldiers so they can invade other parts of Europe. It's not just about Ukraine. It's about all of Europe's security."