Children's commissioner explains extent of Russia's underhandedness regarding abducted Ukrainian children

The Russians are officially formalising the "adoption" of Ukrainian children as "temporary guardianship", and yet there is no institution in the world that is prepared to help Ukraine bring its deported children back.

Source: Daria Herasymchuk, the Ukrainian President’s Commissioner for Children's Rights and Child Rehabilitation, in an interview with the news agency Interfax-Ukraine

Quote: "The Russians are cunning: they understand that adoption is illegal, and so is placing children in family-type settings – but they call it ‘temporary guardianship’. And although they’ll state publicly, ‘We’ve adopted [children]’ or ‘They were given up for adoption’, in fact, according to the documents, it is a temporary guardianship."

Details: According to Herasymchuk, Ukraine has managed to bring back several "temporarily looked-after" children. "Regarding cases where children have been brought back after already having been ‘adopted’ in the Russian Federation – yes, we have succeeded in doing this," she said.

Herasymchuk explained that the Russians "forcibly collect documents from parents stating that they are sending their child to a camp for three weeks. Then the Russians undertake to return them. The child is taken to the camp. Of course, no one brings the child back afterwards."

Herasymchuk says children are moved around between different camps for six months, from one camp to another. After six months, they count such children as having been left without parental care, claiming that no one came and collected them. Then they are sent to "new families", but the children are not explicitly told about this. In other words, the Russians use all sorts of schemes to deprive children of their biological families.

"The Russians have a clear genocidal policy. Their goal is either to destroy the Ukrainian child here, or to replenish their nation using the children they abduct. Two goals. That's it," Herasymchuk emphasised.

The Children's Commissioner believes that there is currently no international institution in the world that could offer an effective mechanism to bring Ukraine’s deported children home.

She concludes by saying, "Ukraine has witnessed the total absence of a child protection system in the world."

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