Nearly 9 out of 10 face sex trafficking, organized crime, or suicide, warns Slavic Gospel Association

NEWS PROVIDED BY
InChrist Communications
Aug. 13, 2025

LOVES PARK, Ill., Aug. 13, 2025 /Standard Newswire/ — A U.S.-based mission organization is at the center of an incredible effort to rescue thousands of orphaned teenagers in the former Soviet Union from being sucked into prostitution, slavery and organized crime.

According to Slavic Gospel Association (SGA), a staggering 87% of teenagers who “age out” of state-run orphanages at 18 will fall victim to these horrors or even suicide — unless someone intervenes.

Across Russia, Ukraine and other ex-Soviet countries, an estimated 700,000 orphaned or abandoned children languish in bleak institutions. When they reach the age of 18, they are released and on their own.

“Unless someone steps in to help them, these lonely teenagers are easy targets for sex traffickers and criminal gangs,” said Michael Johnson, president of SGA, an evangelical mission agency that has supported orphans across the region for decades.

In a report last year, the U.S. State Department corroborated the dangers, stating: “Traffickers lure children from state and municipal orphanages into forced begging, forced criminality, sex trafficking, use by armed groups... and other forms of abuse.”

Ripe For Exploitation, Ready For Hope
Years of trauma and abandonment often leave orphans emotionally hardened — making them ripe for exploitation. But local Christians are finding a way to break the hard shell.

Through an SGA-supported ministry called Orphans Reborn, trained volunteers from local churches visit orphanages every week — even in the remotest outposts of Siberia. Their mission: to show the children that they are loved, and that there is hope.

“The Gospel is at the heart of everything,” Johnson said.

Yet these visiting “angels” sometimes face direct competition from other visitors with dark motives — criminals who groom children within the very institutions meant to protect them.

In one orphanage, volunteers were teaching Bible stories to children in one room — while just down the hall, gang members trained boys in martial arts and groomed young girls for sex trafficking.

“It’s a race against evil,” Johnson said.

Sergei, a local Christian, understands that world of evil all too well.

He once worked as a sex trafficker himself, “using my communication skills to establish connections with the police, transfer money, and make arrangements.”

All that changed when Sergei met God — an experience that turned his life around.

From Trafficker to Rescuer
“I felt God calling me to help the very girls with whom I once worked,” he said. “No one else was doing it. I asked for help and only heard, ‘We’ll call you back’ — but there were no calls. Then my wife said, ‘How long will we sit at home? We have two thermoses. Let’s fill them with tea and go.’”

What began with two flasks of tea grew into a ministry that has helped more than 30 girls and young women leave the sex trade. Many of them have started a new life, and found a new “family” in their local church community.

More than anything, children in state institutions long to be part of a loving family, said Eric Mock, SGA’s senior vice president of ministry operations and a frequent visitor to orphanages across the region.

Mock recalled a young boy at a church-run soccer camp who excitedly ran home to show his mother the prize he had won — only to be beaten unconscious with a stick.

“In front of her son, she told me, ‘I’m just stuck with him. I don’t love him. I don’t want him,’” Mock said. “He ended up as an orphan. Unfortunately, his story is not unusual.”

It’s All About Family
Through the orphans ministry, local Christians continue to hold weekly Bible studies, share the Gospel, and build relationships with children who’ve been cast aside and forgotten.

When teens leave the orphanages, local evangelical churches welcome them in — providing the stable, caring family environment they crave, and helping them practically with such things as food and finding a job.

“They do much more than just minister to these kids,” Mock said. “At long last, they are family.”

Founded in 1934, Slavic Gospel Association (SGA, www.sga.org) helps “forgotten” orphans, widows and families in Ukraine, Russia, the former Soviet countries of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Russian-speaking immigrants in Israel – caring for their physical needs and sharing the life-transforming Gospel. SGA supports an extensive grassroots network of local evangelical missionary pastors and churches in cities and rural villages across this vast region.

MEDIA: To arrange a video or phone interview with Michael Johnson and/or Eric Mock, contact:

DeWayne Hamby dhamby@inchristcommunications.com, (423) 505-0041 (text or phone)

SOURCE: InChrist Communications