Instantiating prefabs: "The object of type GameObject has been destroyed".

I am using this code to equip items on the player:

	//Equipping items on the character's model
	public void EquipItems()
  	{
		//runs through each location where the items will be equipped on the player character model
		for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
		{
			//if the equip location exists
			if (itemLocation  *!= null)*
  •  	{*
    
  •  		//destroys any existing equipped items if they don't match the newly-equipped items*
    

_ foreach (Transform child in itemLocation*.transform)_
_
{_
_
if (child != null)_
_
{_
_ if (child.gameObject.name != equippedItems.itemPrefab.name && child.gameObject.tag == “Item”)
{
GameObject.Destroy(child.gameObject);
}
}
}
//places the new items in their locations*
equippedItemsClones = Instantiate (equippedItems .itemPrefab, itemLocation.transform.position, itemLocation*.transform.rotation) as GameObject;
equippedItemsClones.transform.parent = itemLocation.transform;
Debug.Log("instantiating " + equippedItems.itemName);
}
}
}*

But, when I run it, I pick up an item from the ground, try to equip it, and get shown this error message:
MissingReferenceException: The object of type ‘GameObject’ has been destroyed but you are still trying to access it.
Your script should either check if it is null or you should not destroy the object.
UnityEngine.Object.Internal_InstantiateSingle (UnityEngine.Object data, Vector3 pos, Quaternion rot) (at C:/BuildAgent/work/d63dfc6385190b60/artifacts/EditorGenerated/UnityEngineObject.cs:74)
UnityEngine.Object.Instantiate (UnityEngine.Object original, Vector3 position, Quaternion rotation) (at C:/BuildAgent/work/d63dfc6385190b60/artifacts/EditorGenerated/UnityEngineObject.cs:84)
CharacterClass.EquipItems () (at Assets/scripts/Classes/CharacterClass.cs:94)
InventoryScript.Update () (at Assets/scripts/GUIScripts/InventoryScripts/InventoryScript.cs:63)
I don’t know what’s gone wrong._

Most probably, your list of equipedItems is populated based on references to the transform children that are tagged as items. You then go and destroy some of those children, and then try to access them again from equipedItems, but since equipedItems are references, and the referenced object was destroyed, you get that error.

Either instantiate your clones, and then call Destroy, or check that equipedItems is != null before instantiating.