Better Care Network highlights recent news pieces related to the issue of children's care around the world. These pieces include newspaper articles, interviews, audio or video clips, campaign launches, and more.
New York, NY, March 7, 2022 — The International Rescue Committee (IRC) warns that of the over 1.5 million refugees that have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion, the vast majority are women and children at grave risk of violence, exploitation and abuse.
As the Russian Army bears down on Ukraine from the north, south and east, a mass migration of millions of civilians is gathering like a storm over the plains. But the international border gates are a painful filter, splitting families apart. The Ukrainian government has mandated that men aged 18 to 60 are not allowed to leave the country, so the crowds pouring into Poland, Hungary and other neighboring nations are eerily devoid of men.
Children who are too sick to go home or flee the capital shelter from Russian missiles in a Kyiv hospital.
Evacuation trains from Ukraine to Poland have become lifelines for women and children forced to evacuate the most hard-hit centres of Ukraine.
“Care” or “foster care” is often depicted as a system that protects children from parents who hurt them. The truth, however, is that the state often removes children from loving families simply because they are poor. Ironically, a system meant to protect children ends up causing them immeasurable harm.
KYIV, Ukraine—Krystyna Krayevska came to Kyiv from Poland, where she normally lives and works, for her niece Darynka’s sixth birthday in January. A few days later, Darynka was diagnosed with a brain tumor and, after complications following surgery, now lies on life support in Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital, Okhmatdyt.
What has war looked like for the children of Ukraine? For many, it has meant sheltering in basements and subway stations while Russian forces attack cities and street fights rage. For others, it has meant a scramble to escape, leaving homes and fathers, taking trains and buses or walking for miles with their families in hopes of crossing into a safer country.
Nothing crystallizes the “her body, my baby” conundrum of surrogacy quite like a war. Should a surrogate be tucked away somewhere safe, to protect the child she’s growing for someone else? Or should she be with her own family, or in her hometown, or even out on the streets defending her nation? That is a live question in Ukraine right now.
Escalating conflict in Ukraine poses an immediate and growing threat to the lives and well-being of the country’s 7.5 million children. Humanitarian needs are multiplying – and spreading by the hour. Children have been killed. Children have been wounded. They are being profoundly traumatized by the violence all around them. Hundreds of thousands of people are on the move, and family members are becoming separated from their loved ones.
More households with children had difficulty paying for usual household expenses after Child Tax Credit (CTC) payments ended in December, according to new Household Pulse Survey (HPS) results.