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Statement by Ambassador Barbara Woodward, UK Permanent Representative to the UN, at the UN Security Council meeting on the maintenance of peace and security in Ukraine.
For over 1,000 days, Ukrainian civilians have had their rights to life, liberty, and security threatened as a result of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Ukrainian children have borne the brunt of this, spending days in shelters rather than in classrooms or playgrounds.
Earlier this year the UN reported that children in frontline areas had spent up to 5,000 hours – or 7 months – underground.
In less than three years, nearly 2,500 children have been killed or injured. That’s at least 16 children each week and I met some of them during my visit last year.
Millions, each child with a name, a face, a dream of the future, continue to suffer due to the ongoing attacks and occupation. Their homes, schools, playgrounds, and even hospitals have had their heat and energy cut off, and in many cases destroyed.
Russia’s attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure are illegal and members of the Security Council has repeatedly called on Russia to cease these attacks and yet they continue.
On top of this, Russia continues to deport and indoctrinate Ukrainian children. As an occupying power, Russia has an obligation not to forcibly transfer or deport the Ukrainian civilian population from and within the occupied territory.
Yet the Government of Ukraine reports that 19,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly deported to Russia or Russian temporarily occupied territories: a practice which we saw previously in Crimea.
An estimated 6,000 Ukrainian children have been relocated to re-education camps. In these camps, and in schools within the temporarily occupied territories, Russian authorities subject children to indoctrination through use of a curriculum that rewrites history, and in some cases, involves military training.
We are also concerned by reports that the Ukrainian children forcibly taken from Ukraine are being adopted in Russia. To strip children of their identity and their families in this way is a violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and a systematic attempt to erase Ukrainian identity, and with it, Ukraine’s future.
We thank the Yale Research Lab for their work further uncovering the intentional and widespread coerced adoption of children from Ukraine. This includes 166 children placed directly with citizens of Russia.
We are determined to hold those responsible to account. The International Criminal Court has already issued indictments related to this crime, including against President Putin himself.
This is not a humanitarian evacuation. This is a systematic erasure of Ukrainian culture, with significant obstacles put in place to prevent Ukrainian children being reunited with their families.
We call on Russia to cease these deportations immediately and return all Ukrainian children home. And to stop its attacks on children’s homes, schools, and the infrastructure that would keep them warm this winter. In short, to stop destroying childhood for Ukrainian children.
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