More than 500 children from residential institutions in the Dnipro region, who were evacuated at the beginning of the full-scale invasion to Turkey, did not have access to education or medical care, were subjected to physical and psychological abuse by their caregivers, and were forced to appear in promotional videos to raise money for a private foundation. This is stated in the report of the monitoring visit by the Office of the Ukrainian Ombudsman, which was made available to journalists from Slidstvo.Info.
In March 2024, 11 Ukrainian officials from the Ombudsman’s Office and the authorities of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast visited hotels in Turkey where 510 orphans and children deprived of parental care had been evacuated. At that time, the children had already been in Turkey for two years and were mainly housed in the Larissa Hotel in the city of Beldebi.
“The evacuation in 2022 took place with the approval of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration and orders from institutions with the assistance of the Consulate of Ukraine in Antalya and the Ruslan Shostak Foundation,” the report says.
Ukrainian representatives noted that the children, who were staying in a 200-room hotel and had been evacuated for two years, did not have full access to education. The hotel had an educational classroom for 25 students, but about 200 children needed education. Most of the children studied in hotel rooms, where “there were no proper conditions.”
“In most of the rooms where children study, there is no internet,” the report says. “Children who do not have tablets do not have access to education or study together with other children with one tablet or phone. At the same time, tablets are used as a means of encouragement by accompanying adults. For bad behavior or unwillingness to participate in the foundation’s fundraising campaigns, children may be deprived of their tablets and, with that, access to education”.
Screenshot from the report of the Ombudsman’s Office monitoring visit to Turkey in March 2024
The report also states that Ruslan Shostak’s Foundation restricted Turkish authorities’ access to children and involved minors in fundraising for the foundation’s accounts.
“The foundation’s employees were constantly present in hotels with children and helped organise leisure activities, conducted public fundraising campaigns to help children evacuated to Turkey,” the report said. “Representatives of the foundation and accompanying adults stopped providing the necessary information (to the Turkish authorities, the Red Cross, UNICEF, ed.), restricted access of psychologists and social workers to minors, stopped taking them for medical examinations, and almost completely restricted any medical assistance to children.” The foundation insisted that it did not need additional support, as it regularly carried out fundraising activities (with the participation of minors of various ages), which it kept in its own accounts”.
During the “Childhood Without War” project, children were involved in fundraising campaigns by the foundation
It is also stated that the Shostak Foundation conducted special photo shoots and video recordings, and children who participated in such campaigns were given preferences in the form of additional food, clothing, etc. “Children who refused to participate were punished and restricted in their access to entertainment,” the report states.
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Several institutions’ residents who were evacuated to Turkey confirmed in an interview with Slidstvo.Info journalists that children who did not want to participate in the recording of promotional videos were punished.
Ruslan Shostak, the founder of the foundation, which took care of the children in Turkey for almost three years, denied such behaviour on the part of his organisation’s representatives.
The report also notes that “the use of physical violence and psychological pressure by accompanying adults from among the educators, as well as representatives of the Shostak Foundation, is systematic”.
In particular, the report states that Oleksandr Titov, a teacher at a Kryvyi Rih school, delegated the functions of supervision, control, punishment and intimidation of minors to the young athletes under his supervision. “The educator personally beat, intimidated and mocked the children. There is testimony from children and video evidence confirming his violent actions”.
In an interview with Slidstvo.Info, Oleksandr Titov denied using physical force against the children. However, children who were in Turkey during this period confirmed the information in the report to journalists.
The report also mentions that educators bullied children with disabilities, “beating them with phone chargers and wet clothes”.
Examples of bullying of children. Screenshot from the report of the Ombudsman’s Office monitoring visit to Turkey in March 2024
A separate section of the report is devoted to the safety of children and the conditions that were created on the territory of the Larissa Hotel.
“According to the Ukrainian consul, over the past two months, there has been a significant increase in the number of requests from representatives of the foundation to allow outsiders onto the hotel grounds. The foundation explained this by the need to ‘show children from Ukraine’ for fundraising campaigns, the report says. — The foundation’s lack of criteria for selecting staff and controlling their stay and movement on the hotel premises leads to a number of significant violations of children’s rights. Staff are in daily contact with children and have unrestricted access to their places of study and residence. This makes it possible for sexual crimes against children and violence against them to occur”.
Screenshot from the report of the Ombudsman’s Office monitoring visit to Turkey in March 2024
The report mentions cases of sexual relations between underage girls and Turkish men working at the hotel. Two girls became pregnant and gave birth to children fathered by hotel staff. Slidstvo.Info found confirmation of this fact in the report.
Representatives of the monitoring mission also mention a case where a boarding school student disappeared from the hotel for two days, “which led to a search and rescue operation involving a helicopter”. It also mentions two teenage boys who ran away from the hotel and robbed a local shop.
“According to the children, the minor had sexual contact with a Russian citizen, stole money from him, and as a result, he searched for her on the hotel premises armed”, the report says.
Security issues at the hotel where the children from Ukraine were staying. Screenshot from the report of the Ombudsman’s Office monitoring visit to Turkey in March 2024
“Fearing publicity, representatives of the foundation searched for the children on their own. After the incident (the boys’ escape and robbery of a shop, ed.) in December last year, all the children were returned to Ukraine”, the report says.
Following the monitoring visit, the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office opened a criminal case for improper performance of duties to protect the life and health of children. A year later, the criminal case was closed due to lack of evidence.
During a lengthy investigation, journalists from Slidstvo.Info attempted to identify those punished for violating children’s rights in Turkey. They managed to find out that only Oleksandr Titov, who, as stated in the report, used physical violence against children, was demoted from senior educator to physical education teacher at the same institution.
Ruslan Shostak received a high state award, the Order of Merit III degree, for the evacuation project. The decree was signed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
During an interview with Ruslan Shostak, journalists from Slidstvo.Info quoted from the report and asked the businessman to comment on it. He denied the facts presented. Representatives of the Foundation’s team promised to send other reports refuting the findings of the Ombudsman’s Office report. Instead, they mistakenly sent journalists a document with a plan to neutralise the impact of their investigation.
An investigative film about the violation of the rights of children from boarding schools who were taken to Turkey can be viewed here.
