Ensuring justice: Russia’s crimes of child abduction in Ukraine
Date and time:
Tuesday 19 March, 2024
18:30 - 20:00
Location:
Europe House
32 Smith Square
London
Join us to discuss the abduction and forcible deportation of Ukrainian children, and learn how the international community can ensure justice for the victims of Russian war crimes.
In the course of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, around 20,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly taken to Russia by Russian soldiers. These mass abductions resulted in the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants in March 2023 for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova. In addition to the systematic separation of Ukrainian children from their families, relocation of orphanages, and unlawful facilitation of their adoption by Russian families, the Russian occupying authorities are imposing forcible Russification on the abducted children. This underscores the deliberate and calculated nature of these crimes.
The speakers will discuss the deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children, exploring strategies to hold those responsible for Russian war crimes accountable.
This event is co-organised by the Ukrainian Institute London, the European Delegation to the UK and Save Ukraine.
Speaker
Mykola Kuleba
Mykola Kuleba is the founder and head of Save Ukraine, Commissioner of the President of Ukraine for Children’s Rights (2014-2021), head of the Kyiv Children’s Service (2006-2014), and co-founder of the Ukraine Without Orphans Alliance.
As Commissioner of the President of Ukraine for Children’s Rights, he united and coordinated the government and the public sector to develop a cohesive state program that created effective mechanisms for preventing, detecting and combating human trafficking and providing assistance to victims of human trafficking. He initiated the reform of state-run institutions for children and co-authored the national strategy for deinstitutionalisation. He created policies and introduced penalties to protect children from bullying, including cyberbullying.
With Russia’s invasion of Crimea and Donbas in 2014, Mykola Kuleba founded the Save Ukraine rescue network, which coordinates dozens of organisations, volunteers, individuals and legal entities to help internally displaced persons, with a special emphasis on children. Save Ukraine has evacuated over 105,000 people from the frontlines. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Save Ukraine has been engaged in the return of deported children to Ukraine and has returned almost 400 forcibly transferred children back to Ukraine from Russia and the temporarily occupied territories.
Moderator
Yulia Ioffe
Dr Yulia Ioffe is a Lecturer in Law at University College London (UCL) and an expert on child rights and migration. Previously, she clerked for H.E. Judge James R. Crawford at the International Court of Justice and worked at the UNHCR Representation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the UNHCR Regional Representation for Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Red Cross Society.
