Advisor - Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights and Child Rehabilitation Daria Herasymchuk took part in the press briefing "Stolen Voices: Deportation and Forced Displacement of Ukrainian Children by Ruscists. Facts and Revelations", where the evidence of Russian crimes gathered by experts of the OSCE Moscow Mechanism, specialists of the Yale University Humanities Research Laboratory and Ukrainian civil society activists was presented.
Daria Herasymchuk noted that the existing international documents that were created to protect and safeguard children are only effective if everyone follows the same rules and instructions.
"If someone refuses to do so - in this case, the Russian Federation - we have to find a mechanism to put pressure on such a player to act according to the rules," she explained.
According to the unified state portal "Children of War," 19,500 Ukrainian children have been deported or forcibly displaced. And these are only those children whose personal data is known for certain and verified by the relevant Ukrainian authorities. The exact number of such children may amount to hundreds of thousands and is currently unknown.
"President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy keeps the issue of returning every Ukrainian child abducted by Russia under his personal control," emphasized Daria Herasymchuk.
"President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy keeps the issue of returning every Ukrainian child abducted by Russia under his personal control," emphasized Daria Herasymchuk.
Kateryna Rashevska, a lawyer at the Regional Center for Human Rights (RCHR), said that by abducting Ukrainian children, Russia seeks to make them "Russian patriots."
"Russia does not need Ukrainian children - it needs as many Russian patriots as possible. And it is through the abduction and re-education of our children that Russia wants to replenish its nation. Ukraine is collecting data on these crimes at all levels and passing it on to the relevant international structures to bring all those involved to justice," she said.
Yale University researcher Caitlin Howarth said that they currently have verified evidence of Russia's deportation of Ukrainian children and their forced displacement.
"Today, we are talking not only about those children who were abducted to Russia, but also about those taken to Belarus. Our latest report refers to more than 2,400 Ukrainian children aged 6 to 17 who have been illegally taken to Belarus since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Each of these facts is clearly documented. We have all the data. And the war criminals who are doing this, including Putin, Lukashenko, and others, are well aware of this," she said.
Caitlin Howarth noted that the return of children is an extremely difficult process, so it should become a collective commitment of the international community.
Dr. Elina Steine, an expert of the OSCE Moscow Mechanism, spoke about the recommendations that will not only help Ukraine to receive additional support in exposing the crimes committed by the Russian Federation against Ukrainian children, but will also become a lever of political influence to return children back to Ukraine.
Daria Herasymchuk emphasized that Ukraine is doing and will continue to do everything possible to return every Ukrainian child, and that is why governmental and non-governmental organizations and foreign partners of our country are joining forces to implement the Bring Kids Back UA plan approved by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.