On March 17, 2023, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova. They were charged with war crimes, manifested by the illegal mass deportation of thousands of children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia during Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine. At the time, it seemed that this radical decision could have a real impact both on the process of returning deported children, preventing further deportations, and on the course of the war as a whole. Today it is ascertained that these expectations largely have not materialized. Why the International Criminal Court’s decision did not have the expected impact on the Russian state and its leaders, but also what happened to the already deported children during a year and a half were among the tropics discussed by the experts invited to IPN’s public debate "What is the fate of Ukrainian children deported to Russia following the Hague Tribunal’s decision?".
According to the project's permanent expert Igor Boţan, the International Criminal Court is the permanent international court of justice for serious international crimes, including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The international treaty that established the Court, the Rome Statute, was adopted in July 1998 and the Court itself became operational in 2003. In July 1998, in Rome, 120 UN member states adopted the Rome Statute, which became the legal basis for the establishment of a permanent international criminal court. The Rome Statute entered into force on 1 July 2002, after 60 states ratified it.
The expert points out that the impetus for the creation of the Court came from the special international tribunals founded in the 1990s to examine the atrocious human rights violations committed in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The International Criminal Court is the first permanent international court established by treaty to help eradicate impunity for the many serious crimes committed in the 21st century. Since then, the ICC has been able to draw global attention to the need for justice in cases resulting from investigations in the Central African Republic, Darfur, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.
"Deportation or expulsion is the forced displacement of a person or an entire category of persons to another state or locality, usually under escort... Genocide refers to acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Genocide is an international crime under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948)," explained the expert.
Petro Yatsenko, the representative of the Ukrainian Coordinating Center for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, said that the institution was created in March 2022, after the Russian Federation's invasion of Ukraine. And although initially the focus was on the relatives of prisoners of war, along the way numerous requests came from the families of Ukrainian civilians, who were taken prisoner. Thus, competences were also obtained to work with cases involving civilians, including children.
The official presented data from the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine. According to them, since the beginning of the invasion of the Russian Federation on February 24, 2022, 1,681 children have been injured. Another 589 children were killed as a result of the invasion of the Russian Federation. Another 16 children became victims of sexual violence. At the same time, the number of known cases of deportations or forced displacement of children in connection with the invasion is of 9,546.
So far, 1,007 children deported to Russia or forcibly displaced have returned to Ukraine. This was possible with the help of mediators from partner international organizations. A large part of the children were interviewed by the Center for the Protection of Children's Rights. They benefited from support in the reintegration process, which continues.
"As to what is happening to forcibly displaced children in Russia, we currently know that since the beginning of the all-out invasion of the Russian Federation, from 10,000 to 12,000 children have been taken to Russian camps specializing in military and patriotic activities. The main goal is to destroy their Ukrainian identity and impose the Russian identity on them... We know that many Ukrainian children are still subjected to Russian propaganda, and the main goal is to destroy their national identity and imbed the Russian one. Currently, there are hundreds of thousands of children living in the temporarily occupied territories who are at risk of deportation in the current context," said Petro Yatsenko.
Mariana Yanakevich, executive director of the Association for Child and Family Empowerment "AVE Copiii", a member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, said that the Convention on the Rights of the Child contains clear provisions stipulating the obligations of each state to protect the children from any form of violence, wherever they are – in the family, at school or anywhere else. Thus, any state that signed or ratified the Convention, regardless of the status, is obliged to do everything possible to protect the children, regardless of the circumstances.
According to her, public statements by Russian officials that these forced displacement actions are a measure of protection for children are deceptive. The truth is that, through mass illegal deportations, the Russian Federation violates the main provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, including: the right to survival and development; the right to name and citizenship; the right to cultural and religious identity; the right to have a family; the right to protection against any form of discrimination; the right to protection against military conflicts, violence and cruel treatment, etc.
Mariana Yanakevich noted that the Convention on the Rights of the Child says that any state must take all measures to prevent the illegal removal of children. Also, each state that is a party to the Convention must prevent the kidnapping and trafficking of children. On the other hand, there is also the child's right to education. And even though adults, who represent the interests of children, can freely choose the purpose of education, the Convention defends every child's right to identity. Respectively, any state must respect the right to identity. At the same time, the issue of rehabilitation of children brought back to the motherland is extremely sensitive and complex. Rehabilitation takes a lot of time. In particular, the longer the child has no access to information or has access to one-sided information, the longer the rehabilitation lasts.
The executive director of "AVE Copiii" also said that, for now, there is no complete picture of the situation regarding children in Ukraine. Until the international community, in particular Ukraine, knows the real number, it will be difficult to estimate what the real need is in terms of time, human resources and financial resources.
The public debate entitled "What is the fate of Ukrainian children deported to Russia following the Hague Tribunal’s decision?" is part of the project "Developing political culture through public debates". IPN Agency carries out this project with support from the German Hanns Seidel Foundation.
