April 7, 2022
KIND’s work with unaccompanied children in the United States and abroad frequently means that our staff and partners work with children who have been trafficked or are at risk of trafficking. The extreme vulnerability of separated and unaccompanied children creates the opportunity for predators and traffickers to exploit and harm them, preying upon their youth, their desperation, and their invisibility to further criminal ends. Trafficking in all its forms may occur along any stage of an unaccompanied or separated child’s journey, but when this journey is precipitated by war, family separation and mass displacement, as in Ukraine, the likelihood of exploitation dramatically increases.
