The UN Committee called on russia to name the exact number of children forcibly removed from Ukraine and provide their whereabouts
Kyiv • UNN
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has called on russia to stop the forced removal of Ukrainian children and return them to their families. The russian authorities should provide information on the exact number of children taken from Ukraine and their whereabouts so that they can be identified and returned.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has called on russia to stop the forced displacement of children from the occupied areas of Ukraine in violation of international law and return them to their families. This is reported by UNN with reference to Reuters.
Details
In a report on russia, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child stated that the russian authorities should provide information on the exact number of children taken from Ukraine and their whereabouts so that they can be identified and returned.
The Committee also stated that russia must ensure that no child is deprived of their Ukrainian citizenship and that their identity, name and family ties are preserved.
Committee Chairwoman Anne Skelton said that last month in Geneva, representatives of the committee discussed the issue of the removal of Ukrainian children with the russian delegation.
During the dialog, we often noticed that we used one terminology and they used another. We used the word "adoption," and they denied that it was adoption and talked about "fostering"
According to her, the delegation acknowledged that many children had received russian citizenship, which, in her opinion, means that these children are losing their identity and gaining a russian identity.
Context
About 20,000 Ukrainian children were taken to russia without the consent of their families or guardians. In March last year, the ICC issued arrest warrants for putin and russian children's ombudsman maria levova-belova on charges of illegally deporting children from Ukraine.
The ICC chief prosecutor said that russia had taken "at least hundreds" of children from orphanages and boarding schools in the occupied regions of Ukraine, and that many of them were given up for adoption.