World is not helping Ukraine to bring back children deported to Russia – child ombudswoman

Ukrainska Pravda
·2 min read
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Daria Herasymchuk, Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights and Child Rehabilitation, believes that so far there is no international structure which could at least suggest a mechanism of bringing the deported Ukrainian children back to Ukraine.

Source: Herasymchuk in an interview for Interfax-Ukraine

Quote: "Concerning the deported children, we handed all the lists and personal information over to certain international organisations. Unfortunately, no action followed.

So at the moment there is not a single international structure, which could suggest a reliable mechanism of bringing our deported children back."

Details: Herasymchuk thinks that "Ukraine faced total absence of the system of child protection worldwide: "It does not exist at all."

She added that there are well-written documents within international law – Geneva Convention, the UN Convention about the Children’s Rights and others, and theoretically they should have worked, if all signees followed these rules."

One of the signers couldn't care less about all these rules it has itself signed: "It understands them how it wants, explains its actions how it wants, that is using its perverse imagination."

Quote: "The whole world relied on the organisation which has the broadest mandate in the issues connected with deported and forcibly displaced persons – this is the International Red Cross Committee.

And it does not only concern the deported persons, as at the moment it is about the victims of the tragedy of the Kakhovka HPP. It is all the same here: we hoped that it was the International Red Cross Committee which should have been the first organization on site and saving people but, sadly, in reality it was not the case in Ukraine."

Background: 

  • Herasymchuk reported that Ukraine has brought 373 deported children back from Russia; there is accurate information about the deportation of 19 499 children but this number may reach 200-300 thousand.

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