Dariia Zarivna, Advisor to the Head of the Office of the President and Chief Operating Officer of Bring Kids Back UA, presented a report to the UN Security Council on systematic gross violations of Ukrainian children's rights: murders, sexual violence, illegal adoptions, and militarization of young Ukrainians committed by Russia during its full-scale aggression against Ukraine.
Today's meeting of the UN Security Council “Maintenance of peace and security of Ukraine” was convened to discuss and draw the world's special attention to the crimes committed by the Russian Federation against children during the war.
Ukraine is searching for nearly 20 thousand children who were subjected to illegal deportation and forced transfer. However, the actual number may be many times higher. “Russian officials systematically refuse to provide information. But to give you some idea, Russian Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova boasted about 'settling' over 700,000 Ukrainian children in Russia,” Dariia Zarivna noted.
She recalled that Ukraine, together with Canada, launched the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children, which was joined by 41 countries and the Council of Europe. Thanks to the joint efforts of the Coalition members, 1,022 children have been brought home.
Bring Kids Back UA's Chief Operating Officer demonstrated Marharyta Prokopenko's Ukrainian birth certificate and compared it to a Russian document in the name of Maryna Mironova. Russia issued it after Marharyta was abducted from the Kherson Children's Home. In Russia, her name and birthplace were changed, and she was forcibly adopted into the family of State Duma deputy Sergei Mironov.
“Kherson Children’s Home. Just one case of many. Those little kids had to hide in a church basement when your army entered the city. But the FSB found them. And deported. You know where our children exactly are. Stop tormenting them. Bring kids back to Ukraine,” Dariia Zarivna addressed the representatives of the Russian Federation.
Nathaniel Raymond, Executive Director of the Yale University Humanitarian Research Lab and a member of the Bring Kids Back UA Task Force, presented the report “Russia's Systematic Program of Coerced Adoption and Fostering of Ukraine's Children” released on December 3, after 20 months of investigation, which reveals the systematic policy of the Russian authorities to illegally deport, re-educate, and forcibly adopt young Ukrainians.
Kateryna Rashevska, a legal expert at the Regional Center for Human Rights and a member of the Bring Kids Back UA Task Force, emphasized in her speech that more than 1.5 million Ukrainian children remain under occupation. “The forced imposition of Russian citizenship is a deliberate policy of the aggressor state. Without Russian documents, children face discrimination even in accessing medical care, let alone education and other services in the occupied territories,” she concluded.