“After the start of full -scale aggression of Russia, Ukraine met not only with the military offensive, but also with the hidden front, which affects the most vulnerable – our children. In terms of occupation, the Russian Federation systematically and largely forcibly moves and deport them.”, – WRITE: www.pravda.com.ua
It is a systemic military crime that threatens the general generation of Ukrainian citizens. And this is not a political assessment – it has international legal recognition. In March 2023, the International Criminal Court in the Hague issued warrants for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Commissioner for the Rights of the Child Maria Lviv-Belova. For the first time since the Second World War, the Head of State received an official international accusation for a military crime related to the illegal deportation and movement of children.
The investigators of the ISS concluded that there are reasonable reasons to consider: the export of Ukrainian children was part of a planned policy, in which the highest officials of Russia played a direct personal role. This means that persecution can last even after the war – and applies not only to Putin or Belova, but also to the whole vertical that participated in the abduction, violent movement and assimilation of children.
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Prior to the arrest, the Russian side openly declared the “adoption” of Ukrainian children, published propaganda videos with children who “found a new family in Russia”, demonstrated changes in citizenship, names and places of residence. It is a direct violation of Article 49 of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits the violent movement of civilians from the occupied territories, as well as Articles 78 of the additional protocol and to the 1949 Conventions.
In response to these systemic violations, Ukraine has launched the initiative of the Kids Back UA, which combines the efforts of state and non -state stakeholders to search, identify, return, document and reintegration. The Coordination Center for the Development of Family Education and Care of Children is also part of this initiative.
We act in the best interests of the child. And the best interests of the child are the right to maintain his own identity and grow along with his relatives, in his home country, cultural and linguistic environment.
State Response Mechanism: A Resolution fixing irreversibility For three years, the state has been looking for and returning children who have been deported or forcibly moved by Russia. This work requires complex interaction between public authorities, public organizations, international partners and families of children. Ukraine gradually forms approaches, studies the experience of other countries, adapts support models and captures every step to build a system from informal decisions.
In May 2024, the Government approved Resolution No. 551 “On the procedure for detecting and returning children deported or forcibly displaced as a result of armed aggression of the Russian Federation”. The decree has enshrined the concept of “individual return plan” – a document that is developed for each child, taking into account its age, place of residence, circumstances of export, health status, legal status, possible family ties. From the moment of receiving the signal about the child and to its safe return to Ukraine, the coordinated system of interagency interaction is involved.
Each participant in this system has a clear role – from the moment when information about the child appears to her safe return home. Priority – reintegration into the family: primarily to parents or guardians from relatives. If this is not possible, the child is temporarily arranged in a patronage or foster family. The whole interaction is aimed at the child as soon as possible in a stable and safe environment. For example, a girl of 14 years who managed to return from the occupied part of the Kherson region, during the year she lived independently after her mother’s death. She did not trust the adults, avoided communication and categorically did not want to be arranged in the family. The girl deliberately torn the attempts to get acquainted – so that no one wanted to accept her. Only on the fourth attempt did she find contact with a family -type orphanage, and the next day she asked to transport her there. Today it is part of a large friendly family. And this is an example of the fact that sometimes the path to the family is difficult, but it is the family environment that is the key to restoring trust.
Return is not the finale. This is just the beginning The fact of physical return of the child to Ukraine is only the first stage. The most important thing begins: the child needs adaptation, safety, trust, new ties. Especially when it comes to isolation children, under the influence of Russian indoctrination policy, involved in military organizations or had experience of violence. One of the boys, returned in June 2024, was taken to the Voronezh region in 2022. There the aunt who accompanied him, without his consent, issued Russian citizenship and arranged in a Russian school. All this time, the guy dreamed of returning to Ukraine, where his older brother served, who, after a serious injury on the front, decided to fully devote himself to the care of his younger one. Thanks to the efforts of the state, the guy who was taken to Russia managed to return. Today, brothers live together in Kiev, prepare for care and build a joint life: one opened a small store, the other is preparing to become a locksmith. With the assistance of the coordination center, the guy who was returned from deportation, underwent a medical examination, received support for joining college and the necessary things to start a new stage of life.
The child is provided with full social support. It begins with the closure of basic needs: recovery of documents, medical examination, psychological assistance, educational adaptation. That is why the coordination center for the development of family education and care of children plays a crucial role in this process. Our task is to coordinate the process of support and reintegration of the child under the return of the child to Ukraine -controlled and reintegration – to embed it return to the care system and support of children, which will allow to live, develop and feel part of society.
The Coordination Center is directly involved in the preparation of communities for the return of children: it forms individual plans for the support of local authorities, helps to provide the necessary social services, support the family to which the child returns, or pick up a new – patronage or foster. I am a safe and caring environment. Sometimes the decision has to be made at the last moment. Thus, in the case of 14-year-old or Kalanchak, after her guardian remained in the occupation and the girl tried to transfer to the boarding school, the situation was only able to resolve on the day of her return. An old grandmother, who formally had to take a baby, could not do so for health reasons. Thanks to the coordinated actions of local children’s affairs, a family -type orphanage in Brovary was promptly selected, with which the girl has made contact and where she lives now.
Family forms of education are not temporary solutions. They are a complete alternative to the institutional system that previously deprived the child of individual attention, care and the possibility of attachment. We develop mentoring, preparation of foster parents, support of families who take responsibility for the upbringing of returned children. That is why the family is not the end of the baby’s route, but its beginning.
We work with communities, families, experts – and guarantee that every child who has returned will receive not just the status, but the environment for healing and growth.
A strategy that has grown from the experience of war The state implements a strategy for ensuring the right of every child to grow in a family environment. It is the basis for reforming the care and support system of children, which takes into account the realities of a full -scale war. Prior to the war, Ukraine has already reformed deinstitutionalization, seeking to reduce the number of children in boarding schools. But after 2022 it became clear that the system should adapt to the new conditions – to evacuations, losses of families, abductions, migration and large -scale increase in the needs of care.
This is what six strategic goals embedded in the strategy are aimed at:
- Strengthening the ability of families with children – that every family that needs it could receive the necessary social, educational and medical support;
- Development of family forms of education -for orphans, children with disabilities and those who lost their parental care did not get into the institution but grow in the family environment;
- reintegration of children evacuated, forcibly moved or deported – in order for every child who is returning could restore the connection with the family and the community;
- Transformation of boarding establishments – with focus to support children in communities instead of their isolation in institutions;
- Youth support with alternative care experience – so that they do not stay on their own after leaving the system, but had the opportunity for a full adult life;
- creation of organizational and legal conditions – for financing, training of personnel, digital decisions and involvement of society in support of family education.
In the focus of each goal, there is a specific change that should provide the child with the right to grow not in the institution, but in the family: his own or alternative, but with care, support and perspective. It’s not just internal reform. This is the answer to Russia’s attempt to destroy the Ukrainian future through our children. And we respond to politics, law and specific protection infrastructure. The state is not just a border. This is responsibility. Returning every child is a history of effort, interaction, human perseverance. But it is also about a moral choice: to be a state that does not leave its citizens in trouble. Ukraine does not allow the “lost child”. Each returned child is proof that even in the war, justice is possible. And it begins with the front, so with care, hugs, home.
The child must live at home, not in the system. In the family, not in the register. And the state is the one who will give it this right. Because Ukraine is a place where every child is important. We are waiting for all our children at home.
*Children’s names in mentioned stories changed for security reasons
Irina TulyakovaChairman of the Coordination Center for Family Education and Child Care
A column is a material that reflects the author’s point of view. The text of the column does not claim the objectivity and comprehensive coverage of the topic that rises in it. The editorial board of “Ukrainian Truth” is not responsible for the accuracy and interpretation of the information provided and plays only the role of the carrier. The point of view of the UP editorial board may not coincide with the point of view of the author of the column.