For Ukraine, for their Freedom and Ours ! - CSO

 

We want to draw your attention to the plight of deported Ukrainian children.

The counts of kidnapping and mass deportations are explicitly considered as genocidal acts by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (article II-e).

However, day by day, the number of kidnapped Ukrainian minors increases.

The Ukrainian authorities speak of several hundred thousand. To date, more than 16,000 have been identified and only 308 have been returned (March 2023).

The greatest number weredeported with their family, especially at the time of the evacuation of Mariupol,Zaporizhia and Kherson. However, these families are scattered throughout the territory of the Russian Federation, as far as Siberia.

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But the most worrying is the fate of unaccompanied minors.

• These abductions occurred, first, at the time of the forced evacuations towards Russia, during the passage through thefilter campsRussians, which led to theseparation of children and parents, kept in detention Other minors lost their families in the bombings and were deported alone to Russia.

• In addition, in the territories temporarily occupied, thechildren sent to summer camp, which we have not heard from, especially since the resumption of Ukrainian territories.

• Finally, there are all disabled, sick minors, sometimes removed from their families and sometimes orphans(not always!), who were welcomed in theUkrainian institutionsand who found themselves in the territories occupied by the Russian army. At the instigation of the Russian Commissioner for the Rights of the Child, very close to Putin, Maria Lvova Belova, these children were systematically rounded up.

 

This poses very serious problems:

• First, it is not always possible to locate the children, because they have been moved from one place of accommodation to another,scattered throughout the territory of the Russian Federation, sometimes thousands of kilometers from Ukraine.

• Above all, some were entrusted to foster families with a view to theiradoption. This was made possible by the decree issued on May 25, 2022 by Vladimir Putin, which allows the granting of Russian nationality to Ukrainian children deemed “orphans”.

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Why are these kidnappings crimes of exceptional gravity?

Firstly because children, sometimes very small, violently separated from their familiar environment and to whom the Russian supervisors repeat that they have been abandoned, suffer a trauma whose consequences are felt in the very long term.

Then, because for the Russian government it is a question of making Ukrainian children forget their own history, their language and the culture of their family.

Wild adoptions like the forced Russification of children, forced to attend Russian schools, are an integral part of the Kremlin's plan: through children, it is the future of Ukraine that Russia wants to destroy.

 

According to article II-e of the 1948 Convention, the deportations of minors are considered acts of genocide. This genocidal intention is clearly reflected in Putin's speech, which denies the identity and the very existence of Ukraine.

 

If we insist on the qualification of genocide, it is because:

It obliges all Heads of State to intervene to protect children and compel Russia to repatriate them without delay (Art.1 Convention).

It also obliges Unicef and the International Red Cross (very silent) to investigate in Russia to organize this repatriation.

Finally, it imposes the creation of a special international court, so that all those responsible for the forced deportations and adoptions of Ukrainian children can be judged (Art. 5 & 6 Convention).