Historical background: from Declaration of the Rights of the Child to the Convention on the Rights of the Child
In 1924, the Declaration of the Rights of the Child was adopted in Geneva, proclaiming the need for social protection of children’s rights. Two decades later, during a session of the Women’s International Democratic Federation in Paris, International Children’s Day was established. The first International Children’s Day was celebrated in 1950. The United Nations supported this initiative and declared the protection of children’s rights, life, and health as one of its priority areas of work. It is celebrated annually on June 1st.
On November 20, 1959, the General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Equal rights of children in the areas of upbringing, education, social security, physical and spiritual development were proclaimed, regardless of skin color, national origin, social background, financial status, and other factors. Since then, the World Children’s Day has been traditionally celebrated as a day of global fraternity and understanding among children. On November 20, 1989, the General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child. According to the Decree of the President of Ukraine dated May 30, 1998, No. 568/98, On Children’s Day, this holiday is annually celebrated in Ukraine on June 1st.
Tragic history: forced labor and kidnapping of children during World War II
In 2016, the author of this article translated the book Child Prisoners of Fascism by Austrian writer, journalist and playwright Margarethe Ruff. The book contains numerous interviews and dramatic stories of teenagers who were forcibly taken from Ukraine (from Kyiv, Cherkasy, Luhansk, Poltava, and Donetsk regions, as well as from Poland) for forced labor in Austria during World War II. The author documented the testimonies of these once young individuals, showcasing the horrific conditions they were forced to endure away from their homeland.
In addition to the dramatic and tragic stories associated with the transportation of minors for forced labor in Austria and Germany during World War II, there existed a Nazi practice of kidnapping children from occupied territories and their subsequent Germanization within “racially pure” Reich families.
These inhumane actions by the Nazis on the occupied territories of the USSR began as early as 1943. Children were usually forcefully taken from their parents (and parents who resisted were killed) and sent to children’s shelters. Those who did not pass the examination by Nazi specialists and doctors were directed to concentration camps or killed immediately.
The infants had their documents changed and were given new names. They were taught the German language. Typically, the process of Germanization lasted three to four months. Afterwards, the child was given up for adoption. As a rule, the adoptive parents were unaware of the children’s origins.
Modern realities: forced removal and abduction of Ukrainian children by Russia
And these are the modern realities in Ukraine. The headlines speak volumes: “Forcible removal of children from Ukraine: where and how Russia is raising ‘new citizens’” and “Russians preparing to abduct thousands of Ukrainian children from the Melitopol region.”
In no way could one have imagined that in the 21st century, seven decades after the end of World War II, the tragic issue of deportations and child killings would become relevant for Ukraine. Putin’s Russian fascists, like the Nazi Germans of the past, forcibly deport and abduct young Ukrainians to solve their demographic problems. The Russian state actively promotes the integration of Ukrainian children into Russian families, obstructs their return to their homeland, disregards international humanitarian law, and complicates the search for displaced children. The Kremlin’s human traffickers attempt to erase their identity through deceitful propaganda.
The Russian-Ukrainian war has been ongoing for ten years, bringing unspeakable suffering to Ukrainian children. Hundreds have lost their lives, and thousands have had their lives destroyed. The little ones are forced to spend their leisure time in shelters or flee danger to different corners of the country, Europe, and the world.
Violations of children’s rights: genocide and Russification
Since the full-scale armed aggression of the Russian Federation in Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, approximately 500 children have been killed, and around a thousand have sustained injuries of varying severity. The Office of the Prosecutor General reports that the assessment of children affected in combat zones, temporarily occupied, and liberated territories is ongoing. Russian soldiers have deported 19,393 children from Ukraine and established over 70 camps for the forced detention of children.
In the operational information from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine dated April 27, 2023, it is stated: “Russian troops cynically continue the illegal removal of children from the temporarily occupied territories of the Luhansk region. In certain populated areas of the Shchastia district, they have announced so-called summer camps for schoolchildren on the territory of the Russian Federation.”
On the same day, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe recognized the deportation and forced displacement of Ukrainian children to the territory of the Russian Federation as genocide. The PACE called on the International Criminal Court to consider the possibility of criminal prosecution for this crime.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) emphasizes that the removal of children may be considered a war crime. Thousands of deported and abducted Ukrainian children have become hostages of Russian military, resulting in the theft of the future of the Ukrainian nation.
Recently, the OSCE published a 90-page report on the deportation and forced displacement of Ukrainian children by the Russian Federation. The document states that Russia has violated a number of international norms, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“The deportation of Ukrainian children carried out by the Russian authorities may contain elements of a crime against humanity. There have been numerous and repeated violations of children’s rights, including the right to identity, family, education, access to information, leisure, participation in cultural life and the arts, as well as rights to thought, conscience, religion, health, freedom, and security,” states the report of the OSCE.
According to this report, there are three main scenarios for the removal of Ukrainian children to occupied or Russian territories:
The first scenario is the so-called ‘evacuation for safety reasons’ into the depths of the regions controlled by Russia, away from the conflict zone. The second scenario involves transferring Ukrainian children for adoption or guardianship by Russian families. It is noted that the Russian authorities have been working on this since 2014, following the occupation of Crimea, when they launched the program Train of Hope. According to this program, anyone from any part of the country could adopt a child from Crimea since they were granted Russian citizenship.
ArmyInform (news agency of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine) correspondent Lesya Medvedenko reports that on the occupied territories, Russian troops conduct medical examinations of children. They send mobile medical teams from Russia. In many cases, the results of these examinations become the basis for deporting children to Russian territory. Additionally, they create a complete registry of biological material of the future Ukrainian generation, including DNA. As a result of these examinations, Russia has complete data on Ukrainian children. Medical examinations on temporarily occupied territories are horrifying. Children are taken supposedly for medical treatment, and based on this pretext, they can be held on Russian territory for an extended period. Parents of children aged four and above are not provided with escorts. This means that children who travel unaccompanied can be handed over to Russian families in the future. This will be a process of brainwashing. These children will attend Russian schools and be immersed in the Russian environment. As they won’t be in the hospital all the time, this becomes another mechanism of Russification.
See also: State-kidnapper: How Russia kidnaps Ukrainian orphans and raises them as Russians
Russian troops commit crimes against the citizens of Ukraine that fall under the definition of genocide. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. The Convention, currently ratified by 149 member states, requires participating countries to prevent acts of genocide and punish them during both wartime and peacetime. The Convention defines genocide as acts committed with the intent to wholly or partially destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such. The indicators of genocide include killing members of the group or causing them serious bodily harm, deliberately imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births within the group, forcibly transferring children from one group to another, and publicly inciting the commission of such acts.
Efforts for repatriation and justice: international responses and legal actions
Ukraine is attempting to identify children illegally taken out of the country by Russia.
“We have complete information about 19,393 children who have been deported to Russia. Children are being deported and taught to hate Ukraine. There are over 200,000 children in the occupied territories. Therefore, the actual number may be much higher,” President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated this on May 13, 2023, during his visit to Rome at a joint press conference after an hour-long meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
The list with their names has been handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has the authority to visit deported children and inquire about the conditions of their detention.
Recalling that in March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, considering him guilty of the illegal deportation of thousands of children from Ukraine.
As announced by the court’s press office, on March 17, 2023, Pre-Trial Chamber II issued arrest warrants for Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, who is authorized by the Russian President for children’s rights. Putin and Lvova-Belova are suspected of committing the war crime of unlawful deportation and transfer of children from the occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, which took place at least since February 24, 2022. Pre-Trial Chamber II, based on the requests of the prosecution on February 22, 2023, ruled that there are sufficient grounds to believe that each of the suspects bears responsibility for the war crime of the illegal deportation and transfer of the population from the occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, which caused harm to Ukrainian children.
Families of Russian nationalists who wish to take a child from Ukraine under their care are required to undergo special patriotic courses. There are “financial incentives” funded by local and regional budgets. Adoption of a child who has found himself in Russia without the care of relatives is considered a priority. These children can have their names, surnames, and even birth dates and places changed, which greatly complicates their search for repatriation. Adoption itself is not funded, as noted by the OSCE, although in some regions, foster parents receive a one-time assistance payment of 300,000 rubles.
The OSCE emphasizes numerous violations of children’s rights, including the right to identity, family, education, access to information, leisure, participation in cultural life and the arts, as well as the rights to opinion, conscience, religion, health, freedom, and safety. Children are forcibly subjected to so-called “patriotic upbringing.” They are compelled to sing the Russian national anthem and attend history lessons during which they are told that Ukraine has “always been part of Russia, and its rightful place is to be part of the Russian Federation.” In some regions, children are coerced into joining youth organizations such as military-patriotic clubs in different cities.
“Violation of the right to identity occurs in various ways. Children who find themselves in camps or under the care of Russian families are constantly forced to speak Russian, attend Russian language classes, and are even taught that Ukrainian and Belarusian languages are merely dialects of Russian,” noted the OSCE.
Belarus was involved in the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children. This is stated in the report of the National Anti-Crisis Management, which opposes the government of Lukashenko, as cited by Sky News. The document indicates that 2,150 Ukrainian children, including orphans aged 6 to 15, were sent to camps and sanatoriums in Belarus. Therefore, at the time of publication, the International Criminal Court has issued warrants for the arrest of the self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko for his involvement in the illegal deportation of thousands of children from Ukraine.
Dmytro Lubinets, the Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for Human Rights, emphasizes in LB.ua (news website) that genocide, according to international legal norms, is a war crime. This is the direct responsibility of the top leadership of the Russian Federation, who has repeatedly admitted in public statements that it mass-deported Ukrainian children to Russian territory or to the occupied territory. The adoption of Ukrainian children in Russia is illegal because according to international and national norms, foreign nationals must inform Ukraine and obtain its consent in order to adopt our children, which Ukraine did not provide. However, Russia circumvents such prohibitions by granting Russian citizenship to Ukrainian children.
Ukrainian children in Russia are being held as hostages, with no information provided about them, and every effort is made to prevent them from leaving the territory of the aggressor country. Children who were deported and returned home by the Ukrainian state testify to psychological pressure and unsuitable living conditions. In particular, some were threatened with placement in orphanages and lied to, claiming that their parents had abandoned them. Children were also told that certain Ukrainian cities no longer exist and were made to believe that Ukraine was responsible for initiating the Russian-Ukrainian war, not Russia.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine reported that the deported children from Ukraine were subjected to abuse in Russia. The minors who had the courage to say, “Glory to Ukraine!” mysteriously disappeared. Children who were successfully brought back to Ukraine report that they were threatened with isolation, placement in orphanages, and beaten with sticks. They were told that their parents had abandoned them and that they were now “children of Russia.”
Anna Dolgareva is a Russian propagandist, poet, and military journalist who has made a hateful statement regarding her understanding of the so-called “denazification” of Ukraine.
“Denazification is possible physically. It is necessary to simply eliminate those who are at war with us and raise their children in the Russian spirit,” she stated.
Lawyer Katerina Rashevska, from the Regional Center for Human Rights (RCHR), discussed the situation with deported Ukrainian children, stating, “Programs are now being developed in Russia specifically for adolescents. The Russian Children’s Ombudsman, Maria Lvova-Belova, has started openly referring to them as ‘difficult children.’ The thing is, some of these children were volunteers in Mariupol. This is a story about children who shouted ‘Glory to Ukraine!’ and sang the Ukrainian anthem, and they hate the Russian president. We assume that this group of adolescents from Mariupol was involved. It’s no wonder they were quickly handed over to Russian families, but some managed to return. Thanks to the support of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, a boy from this group was able to return before the New Year.”
This tragedy must come to an end. We need to put a stop to the emergence of new Janissaries and Mankurts, to the Pavliks Morozovs. We cannot allow girls from Mariupol, Melitopol, Kherson, and Berdiansk to sing: I am a little girl, I dance and sing, I haven’t seen Putin, but I still love him.
We must save the future of the Ukrainian nation.
Originally posted by Viktoria O. Romanchuk on Universum. Translated and edited by the UaPosition – Ukrainian news and analytics website
See also: She was afraid of being missing: daughters’ memories of a female soldier who died in the war
