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A Ukrainian teenager who became pregnant while evacuated to Turkey under a high-profile charity program has been reunited with her baby daughter nearly a year after the child was taken from her, child-rights advocates said.
Nastya, now 17, and her daughter, Melek, were recently moved into a Ukrainian mother-and-child center where they will receive housing, food and basic support, according to activists who have followed the case.
“After a year of forced separation, Nastya and Melek are together,” an activist wrote on Instagram, saying she had personally “brought the girls to a mother-and-child center where they will live and get everything they need.”
Nastya’s experience was a central case in an investigation published last week by OCCRP and its partners Slidstvo.Info and Investigace.cz. The report detailed how hundreds of children from Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region were taken to Turkish hotels under “Childhood Without War,” a mass evacuation program organized and funded by businessman Ruslan Shostak.
Based on interviews and a confidential monitoring report from Ukraine’s Ombudsman’s office, the outlets described overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, poor schooling and pressure on children to appear in fundraising videos. The investigation also found that at least two underage girls — including Nastya — became pregnant by Turkish men who had access to the hotels, and that the pregnancies were never reported to Turkish authorities.
Nastya told reporters she received no prenatal care in Turkey and returned to Ukraine in her seventh month of pregnancy. After giving birth to Melek, she briefly stayed in a private shelter. She says the owner persuaded her to sign papers that led to the baby being taken from her.
Earlier this year, Nastya said she no longer dreamed of a career or a small business — only of being allowed to live with her child.
Activists say that wish has now been granted, but warn she still needs legal help and long-term support. They also say many other teenagers evacuated under “Childhood Without War” remain without stable housing or services.
