Republicans Gutted Aid That Saved Millions Of Kids. I Know Because I’m One Of Them.

As a young child growing up in the 1990s during the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, fear and hunger were often my only friends. 

For three years, from ages 4 to 7, I lived with my parents out of a damp underground bomb shelter without electricity as Serbian forces encircled and laid siege to my hometown. Food and clean drinking water were scarce. My diet mainly consisted of beans and rice. 

Outside, the war raged. Many nights, I went to sleep to the sound of artillery fire booming like thunder in the distance, falling mortar shells whistling through the air like fireworks, and the constant rat-tat-tat of machine gun fire that scarred much of my neighborhood. 

We didn’t have much in those days, but at least UNICEF was there to help.

I didn’t know who or what it was at the time, but seeing its blue logo of a mother and child stamped on sacks of flour my parents carried down into our shelter brought me instant joy. As did the relief on their faces knowing that, at least for a little while, they’d be able to feed their child.

This week, Congress voted to eliminate funding for that very organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund, which was created after World War II to provide humanitarian and developmental aid to vulnerable children across the world. The global aid organization has saved millions of lives by providing vaccines for deadly diseases, as well as safe water, sanitation services, lifesaving supplies, health care, and nutrition to those in need.

The cut of $137 million to UNICEF was tucked into a larger $9 billion recission package targeting foreign aid and public broadcasting funding. President Donald Trump has claimed the programs were riddled with wasteful spending, arguing that foreign aid ought to be halted writ large. The White House went so far as to call it “antithetical to American interests.”

I have to admit the cut to UNICEF wasn’t initially on my radar as a political journalist. Like many of my colleagues in the media and the Capitol Hill press corps, I was focused on the Trump administration’s attacks on the U.S. Agency for International Development, as well as National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. Billionaire Elon Musk took a chainsaw to USAID earlier this year, and now it was on Republicans to formally codify his efforts because Trump had demanded it, threatening those who stood against him with political retribution.

So when a smart friend pointed out the UNICEF provision to me ahead of a Senate vote on the bill, I decided to question Republican senators about it. What, I asked them, is objectionable about an organization dedicated to helping children? Is there something they could point to as an example of wasteful spending at UNICEF specifically, and not just USAID? 

They had no good answers. Instead, I heard a lot of stock GOP talking points about funding for transgender operas and sex workers — none of which is supported by the work of UNICEF, which, again, is focused on helping kids. 

“They told us they were spending money on humanitarian relief. And we found out they’re giving money to male prostitutes in Haiti. I’m not going to support that crap,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told HuffPost, seemingly referring to a USAID initiative.

Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), meanwhile, insisted that children wouldn’t go hungry and that UNICEF’s overall mission wouldn’t be affected by eliminating all of its funding this year.

“If you were spending it on a transgender opera, or on sex workers in Nepal, we’re just taking that amount of money back so you still have the amount of money you have for other things to continue to do the good work that these organizations or different things were set up for,” Britt said.

But that’s not what the text of the recissions bill says, which is strikingly short on details about how the cuts will be implemented. And it’s not what UNICEF believes, either. The aid group warned that rescinding its funding would directly lead to suffering and death.

“Simply put, we will not be able to provide needed services next year if our FY25 U.S. contribution is rescinded and too many children will suffer or die as a result,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell wrote in a letter to senators this week.

The most immediate impacts of the cuts will be felt in the world’s deadliest conflict zones, including in West and Central Africa, the Gaza Strip and in Ukraine.

The $137 million UNICEF was slated to receive this year is a relatively minuscule number when compared to what the U.S. spends annually on average: nearly $7 trillion. It’s especially galling given that congressional Republicans just passed a massive package of tax cuts for the mostly wealthy that is projected to add over $3 trillion to the national debt.

It’s difficult to report on this kind of story as someone who has personal experience growing up in war. As journalists, we’re supposed to inform the public in an accurate and unbiased manner. But in Washington right now, the facts have little impact. Republican members of Congress are terrified of drawing Trump’s wrath, bowing to his whims on government spending despite their constitutional prerogative over the power of the purse.

At the same time, it remains objectively true that I have perspectives on how programs like UNICEF work that many Americans, not to mention American legislators, do not. I find it impossible not to sympathize with vulnerable children like me who could suffer as a result of this decision to target an organization that has been proven to save lives — including my own.