Child abductions in the Russo-Ukrainian War | |
---|---|
Part of the Russo-Ukrainian War | |
![]() 1,500 Ukrainian children from Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts at Yevpatoria, Russian-occupied Crimea, October 2022 | |
Location | Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine |
Date | 2014[1][2][3] – present |
Target | Ukrainian children |
Attack type | |
Deaths | 549[4] |
Injured | 1,354[4] |
Victims | 16,000[4] – 307,000[5] (as of August 2022) 700,000 (as of July 2023)[6] |
Perpetrators | |
Litigation | International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Putin and Lvova-Belova |
During the Russo-Ukrainian War,[3] Russia has forcibly transferred almost 20 thousand Ukrainian children to areas under its control, assigned them Russian citizenship, forcibly adopted them into Russian families, and created obstacles for their reunification with their parents and homeland.[7][8] The United Nations has stated that these deportations constitute war crimes.[8][9] The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for President of Russia Vladimir Putin[10] (who has explicitly supported the forced adoptions, including by enacting legislation to facilitate them)[1] and Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for their alleged involvement.[10] According to international law, including the 1948 Genocide Convention, such acts constitute genocide if done with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a nation or ethnic group.[11][a]
Ukrainian children have been abducted by the Russian state after their parents had been arrested by Russian occupation authorities or killed in the invasion,[12][13] or after becoming separated from their parents in an active war zone.[14] Children have also been abducted from Ukrainian state institutions in occupied areas, and through children's "summer camps" on Russian territory.[12] The abducted children have been subject to Russification;[1][14] raising children of war in a foreign nation and culture may constitute an act of genocide if intended to erase their national identity.[1]
Ukrainian authorities have verified the identities of[15] over 19,000 abducted children,[16] compiling and actively updating the data as part of an online platform: "Children of War". Russian authorities have claimed that over 700,000 Ukrainian children have been "evacuated" by mid-2023,[6] and Ukraine's ombudsman on children's rights believes that the actual number of abducted children may be in the hundreds of thousands.[15] A charitable organisation, Save Ukraine, facilitates the repatriation and family reunification of abducted Ukrainian children.[17][13] Daria Herasymchuk is Ukraine's Presidential Commission for Children's Rights and Child Rehabilitation officer.[18]
The forced displacement of minors in Russia is part of Vladimir Putin's project 'to erase the Ukrainian identity and nation,' say a group of intellectuals and child psychiatrists, including Bernard Golse and the anthropologist Véronique Nahoum-Grappe.
Russia has brought some 700,000 children from the conflict zones in Ukraine into Russian territory, Grigory Karasin, head of the international committee in the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament, said late on Sunday
Точное число украинских детей, насильно вывезенных за время войны в Россию, неизвестно — по данным Киева, речь идет почти о 20 тысячах.
2023-03-16 BBC
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).2023-03-15 OHCHR
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Arrest warrants issued for Russian leader and his children's rights commissioner for 'unlawful deportation' of Ukrainian children
Report by 30 internationally recognised scholars finds 'reasonable grounds to conclude' Moscow in breach of Geneva Convention
What we know about the children behind the indictment of Vladimir Putin and his children's commissioner for abduction
Thousands of Ukrainian children have been transferred to Russia. 'I didn't want to go,' one girl told The New York Times from a foster home near Moscow.
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