Statement by representative of teh Russian Federation Mr. Roman Kashaev at Arria-formula meeting of UNSC members "Abduction and Deportation of Children During Armed Conflict"
Russia strongly condemns crimes against children. The perpetrators of such crimes must be held to account.
Abduction is one of the six grave violations against children under resolution 1612 (2005). Abductions are inseparably linked to other serious wrongdoings – recruitment of children, sexual violence. For more than ten years, we have been seeing that abductions with a view to recruitment or sexual violence are the favorite methods of some terrorist groups.
It would be sufficient to recall numerous cases of abduction by Boko Haram who abducted more than one thousand children in several years with a view to killings, violence or the use of children as suicide bombers. Also, we can recall the abhorrent practices of ISIL and other terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria. These crimes continue, especially in the Idlib zone and northeastern Syria. The dire situation in IDP camps Al-Hol and Roj in the territories occupied by the US is well-known to everyone. Numerous rights watchdogs and special procedures for many years have been talking about abductions of children, most recently on 16 February 2023. The United States, who has control over the camps, is fully responsible for what is going on there.
The Concept Note for this meeting asks how exactly this problem can be resolved. In our view, intensification of the fight against terrorism is a key prerequisite here. An adequate response to the problem of Al-Hol would be de-occupation of Syria and repatriation of children of foreign nationals, something that Western states are in no hurry to do.
International humanitarian law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child must be upheld. Also, the entire UN toolkit for conflict prevention for protection of children and maintenance of a sustained peace, including UNSC resolution 2427, must be used.
It is essential to avoid politicizing of the agenda “children and armed conflict” and not let it be used as a political instrument. The groundless allegations against Russia that we heard today provide a clear manifestation of such an approach. We repeatedly refuted those myths. For this exact reason Russia hosted an Arria meeting on 5 April 2023 which was dedicated to evacuation of children in the context of the Ukrainian crisis. At the meeting, Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Ms. Lvova-Belova, and other panelists provided objective firsthand information to counter each of those false narratives. They provided general statistical data and reported on concrete cases, spoke about the real situation of children who were evacuated and their current status. The truth is that children were evacuated from the zone of hostilities that had been provoked by Kiev.
Since February 2022, Russian regions have accommodated more than 5 million people from Ukraine and the Donbas republics. More than 730 thousands of them are children. An overwhelming majority have arrived together with their parents or other relatives. Only two thousand came from orphanages of the DPR and LPR accompanied by management and personnel of such facilities. Only 357 children of those 2000 were placed in families.
It is not adoption, for that matter. In this case, we speak about provisional care or temporary guardianship by Russian citizens, so children can stay in families rather than orphanages. This form of guardianship was opted for specifically with a view to potential reunification of minors with their relatives if such are discovered.
At the same time, the Russian side does not prevent children’s contacts and communication with relatives, regardless of their place of residence. To facilitate the reunification process, parents can turn to the Office of the Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights and ask for assistance looking for their children. As of this date, 16 children from nine families have reunited with their families with the help of the Presidential Commissioner.
At the meeting on 5 April, we also spoke about forceful deportation conducted by Kiev whereby children are disconnected from their parents, and also about detentions of minors by Ukrainian special services. However some of the participants of this meeting preferred to remain deaf to this information.
When we were preparing for our Arria meeting at the beginning of this month, we came across some blatant cases when European authorities stole children from refugee families. As it turned out, not only Ukrainian refugees are exposed to such practice. We keep receiving appeals and messages on this matter, some of which we have forwarded to the Secretary-General.
A summary of our meeting will soon be circulated among Security Council members as an official document of the Council, so this critical information can be made available once again.
Finally, a couple of words about the ICC. To us, this body has vanished from the map of international judicial mechanisms. It has completely turned into a handy tool of Western countries. The ICC does not hold a jurisdiction as regards Russia and its people. To us, this body does not exist.
While the ICC is serving the anti-Russian political order about pseudo-abductions of Ukrainian children, in the US more and more voices are raised that cry rather than speak about crimes against minors on the American soil. 85 thousand children-migrants are missing in the US. 356 thousand underage migrants have crossed the southern border, many of whom became victims (even according to official US data) of all sorts of violence and crimes.
