transferred

JOSH Duggar has been moved to a new federal prison more than 100 miles closer to his wife and family after leaving a medical facility, The U.S. Sun can exclusively reveal.

The disgraced TLC reality star, 38, is currently serving more than 12 years after being convicted of receiving and possessing child sexual abuse material following his arrest in April 2021.

Official records show he has been transferred to the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City after a short stay at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas.

A Bureau of Prisons spokesperson previously said inmates may be transferred for a variety of reasons, including medical concerns, or other measures designed to maintain institutional safety and inmate protection.

Duggar is now about 218 miles from the family’s home in Tontitown, Arkansas — compared to the roughly 350-mile journey to FCI Seagoville in Texas, where he had been incarcerated since 2022.

The new facility serves as a temporary processing hub for federal inmates being moved between prisons, which means Duggar could be transferred again before serving out the remainder of his sentence.

The U.S. Sun has reached out to the bureau and Duggar’s lawyers comment.

He has been incarcerated since his conviction on federal child pornography charges stemming from downloads made at the used car dealership he operated in Springdale, Arkansas.

In December 2021, a federal jury found him guilty of receiving and possessing child sexual abuse material after investigators traced illegal downloads to a password-protected computer at his business.

Prosecutors argued Duggar was the only person with the knowledge and access needed to download the files.

In May 2022, he was sentenced to 151 months — more than 12 years — in federal prison, followed by 20 years of supervised release.

He was also ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.

Ever since, Duggar has unsuccessfully fought to overturn his conviction, arguing that errors were made during his trial and that evidence should not have been admitted.

Federal appeals courts have rejected the arguments, leaving his conviction and sentence intact.

His wife Anna has remained publicly loyal to her husband throughout his imprisonment despite the scandal that ended the Duggar family’s reality TV empire.

She has regularly visited him in prison and attended court hearings during his legal battle, while continuing to raise the couple’s seven children in Arkansas.

They have been married since September 2008 and have seven children together.

The Bureau of Prisons has not disclosed why Duggar was transferred or where he will ultimately be sent next.

Federal inmates are commonly moved because of security classifications, institutional needs, programming opportunities, medical reasons or other administrative decisions.

For now, Duggar remains in Oklahoma City as officials determine his permanent placement.

His projected release date remains October 2, 2032, according to Bureau of Prisons records.

Meanwhile, his racy messages to his wife Anna while he was in custody in Arkansas were revealed in a report by PEOPLE.

“[I] miss you my lover. i miss being in the shower with you scrubbing, i miss watching you try on clothes, I miss watching you being sexy,” Josh wrote.

He also congratulated his wife for “making the scale numbers lower than expected” and suggested she buy herself “something low cut” to wear in the shocking text.

He continued, “[O]r you can try on clothes and send me a pic of you in your bra and panties 😉 or try on ‘go to the private pool for sun’ swimsuit? btw you should order you a 2-piece swimsuit since summer is coming on soon, get something hot and fun.”

Josh then signed off, telling her he would love her forever and calling her “sexy.”

He wrote a similar sign-off in a message sent to Anna, 38, days later, and added, “p.s. – send pics asap as requested, imlied (sic), inferred or otherwise stated lol. nice one(s) with your twos in it! (OvO).”

It has been more than four years since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, expanding its occupation of Ukrainian lands, which started in 2014. In the chaos and violence of the first months of the invasion, families were separated, and childcare institutions were cut off from the control of the central authorities in Kyiv. As a result, the occupation forces forcibly transferred more than 20,000 Ukrainian children to Russia.

Russian officials claimed that they did not abduct Ukrainian children, but “saved” them through humanitarian evacuations. However, international investigations have since found that many such transfers were unlawful under international humanitarian law. In many documented cases, transfers were carried out without the consent of the living parent or legal guardians of the child.

International humanitarian law prohibits all forcible transfers and deportations of protected people from occupied territory, except for evacuations strictly required to ensure the population’s safety. Even then, evacuation must happen within occupied territory, be temporary, preserve family unity and return evacuees home as soon as hostilities cease.

Today, the lives of thousands of Ukrainian children are devastated by this forcible transfer. Instead of abiding by international legal obligations and returning them to their homeland, Russia has transformed the issue into yet another bargaining chip against the Ukrainian people.

But Ukraine refuses to abandon its children. For the past four years, there have been intense efforts from families, NGOs and the Ukrainian government to bring them back.

Take the case of Lesya (the name has been changed to protect her identity), whose testimony was recorded by The Reckoning Project— a global team of journalists and lawyers documenting and publicising atrocities committed in the war. Lesya was 15 years old when Russian forces occupied her village in the Kherson region in 2022. When the occupation authorities imposed a mandatory evacuation, she was put on a truck with more than 30 other children and was sent to a rehabilitation centre in Feodosia, Crimea. A woman accompanying the children told her that her mother would join her shortly.

At the facility, Lesya and other Ukrainian children were subjected to a strict routine, forced to do chores and study in Russian, using Russian textbooks. They were kept under surveillance indoors most of the time in a building with windows that could not be opened. Two days a week, the children underwent military training.

Eventually, a relative located her, and with the help of Save Ukraine, a Ukrainian NGO facilitating children’s return, her mother managed to bring her back.

But Lesya’s case is the exception rather than the rule. More than 2,000 Ukrainian children have been brought back thanks to efforts by NGOs, the government and foreign mediators.

Pressure through international institutions has also been pursued, but that has not accelerated the process of return.

In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued warrants of arrest for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova for the unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children.

In July 2025, the European Court of Human Rights, in Ukraine and the Netherlands v Russia, found Russia responsible for a number of human rights violations, including the organised removal of children. The court also required Russia to cooperate in establishing a mechanism to find and safely return children.

In March this year, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine concluded that Russia’s deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children amount to crimes against humanity. The report identifies the removal of Ukrainian children as a part of a well-planned and systematically executed policy, conceived at the highest level.

On May 11, the European Union sanctioned 16 individuals and seven entities, while the United Kingdom sanctioned 29 individuals and entities responsible for the deportation, forced transfer, forced assimilation, indoctrination, militarisation and unlawful adoption of Ukrainian children. Overall, the EU has sanctioned more than 130 people and organisations for these actions. The United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, Switzerland and several other countries have introduced similar measures.

The lack of progress on this issue has driven families to desperation. Some have tried to bring their children back on their own or through often-daring missions by Save Ukraine and five other Ukrainian NGOs.

There should be no need for these risky missions. Under international humanitarian law, Russia is obligated to identify and register Ukrainian children in their care, facilitate family reunification, and permit access to neutral actors assisting Ukrainian children.

As negotiations for the end of the war have stalled and other global events have displaced Ukraine from global headlines, we urgently need to put the issue of the abducted Ukrainian children back in the spotlight.

There are several areas in which existing efforts can expand.

First, a comprehensive tracing mechanism needs to be established and financed to track abducted Ukrainian children and prevent their disappearance into dispersed care and adoption systems.

Second, ongoing legal efforts to hold to account Russian officials involved in the abduction should be intensified. This means coordinated prosecutions in states where the universal jurisdiction principle can be applied, as well as joint investigation strategies supported by Eurojust, the EU’s judicial hub. Ukraine’s partners should support its judicial processes launched against Russian officials and cooperate where needed, including through extraditions where legally applicable and other lawful transfer mechanisms. While justice may be slow, the prospect of accountability can have a deterrent effect.

Third, states can and should fully implement sanctions, trade restrictions and other obligations they assumed but did not consistently observe in practice. The sanctions regime on Russia has severely hurt its economy, but it has also seen continuous evasion. A strict implementation can help put more pressure on the regime in Moscow.

While stories of family reunions are heartening, they are just a drop in a bucket compared with the number of children who continue to be separated from their families and absorbed into a system of indoctrination and militarisation.

We must not allow the issue of returning Ukrainian children to be yet another negotiating chip for Moscow. It cannot be put on hold because negotiations have stalled or because other priorities have captured the world’s attention.

Four years is a long time in a child’s life. Each passing day further erodes their national identity and deepens the pain of separation, as they grow up in a hostile environment. There is no principle more universal than the belief that children belong with their parents and loved ones, and Ukrainian children deserve this basic human right today, not at some point in the future.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.