Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has illegally kidnapped more than 20,000 children. Currently, there is a risk for another 1.5 million minors who remain in the temporarily occupied territories.
Points of attention
- Russia has illegally kidnapped over 20,000 Ukrainian children since the invasion of Ukraine began, with a looming threat towards another 1.5 million minors in temporarily occupied territories.
- Dmytro Lubinets warns about the ongoing risk of abduction of Ukrainian children by Russia, highlighting the tragic fate and urgent measures required for their protection.
- The international coalition is focusing on principles like transparency, humanitarian efforts, and access to justice for the safe return of Ukrainian children, despite Russia's efforts to obstruct the process.
- Russian propaganda tactics include changing children's personal data, sending them to re-education camps, and denying their Ukrainian origin, as revealed by the Ombudsman of Ukraine.
- The documentary 'Mutilated Childhood' sheds light on the real stories of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia, showcasing the atrocities faced by families in the occupied territories and emphasizing the importance of protecting children's rights.
Russia plans to continue kidnapping Ukrainian children
This was announced by the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, at the third plenary event of the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children.
According to him, the occupiers change the personal data of forcibly displaced and abducted children so that their relatives and Ukraine cannot find and return them.
Our children are even sent to so-called re-education camps, where they are bombarded with Russian propaganda. Just imagine: our children are forced to deny their Ukrainian origin.
Dmytro Lubinets
Ombudsman of Ukraine
The ombudsman told international partners about the fate of residential institutions, such as the Oleshkiv Children's Boarding Home, a communal facility of the Kherson Regional Council, where children were first moved to the occupied territories and then deported to Russia.
And children from the Kherson regional children's home were generally deported to Russia and adopted without permission.
The Human Rights Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada emphasized that Ukraine is aware of the facts that Ukrainian orphans taken to the Russian Federation receive inadequate medical care and have substandard living conditions.
Ukraine is independently engaged in searching and checking the whereabouts of children, searching for their relatives and involving family forms of education in this process. Our country is also working on improving legal mechanisms and cooperation between state bodies to protect the rights of children and their return.
In particular, according to Lubinets, 2 key resolutions were adopted, which are important steps in establishing internal processes aimed at the return of deported Ukrainian children, as well as ensuring their rights after return.
He emphasized that the main problem now is that the Russian Federation is deliberately slowing down the process of returning our children.
During the meeting, the participants summed up the work of the Coalition for 6 months, outlined plans, and also issued a Joint Statement, which defined the main principles of returning children: transparency regarding data about children, access of international missions to them, support for humanitarian efforts of Ukraine, long-term support for reintegration, ensuring children's access to justice and fairness.
Russia kidnaps Ukrainian children
The Online.UA documentary "Mutilated Childhood" tells about Russia's abduction of Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
The film contains real stories of children and their families affected by Russia's war against Ukraine, comments by leading scientists, psychologists, lawyers and experts on the protection of children's rights.
The heroes of the tape went through Russian captivity, torture, abduction to a health camp, some were separated from their parents during the so-called filtering measures.
