Deportation of Ukrainian children may be considered a war crime – OSCE Mission

The OSCE expert mission established that the forced transfer and deportation of Ukrainian children to the temporarily occupied territories and/or to the territory of the Russian Federation may constitute war crimes.

The corresponding report, prepared within the framework of the “Moscow mechanism” of the OSCE, entitled “On violations and abuses of international humanitarian law (IHL) and human rights law, war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the forcible transfer and/or deportation of Ukrainian children to the Russian Federation” published on the OSCE website.

The report states the fact of large-scale displacement of Ukrainian children from the territory of Ukraine to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and to the territory of the Russian Federation itself. The main focus of the document is on orphans and unaccompanied children, “because they are the most vulnerable groups among displaced children.”

According to the report, after being transferred to the territory of the Russian Federation, Ukrainian children “are exposed to pro-Russian information campaigns, which are often a total re-education.” At the same time, the Russian Federation “does not take any steps to actively promote the return of Ukrainian children.” And even vice versa, “it creates various obstacles for families who seek to return their children.”

“The mission established that although some cases of evacuation of children comply with Russia’s obligations under international humanitarian law, other cases of evacuation of children without their consent, relocation and long-term placement of Ukrainian children are a violation of IHL, and in some cases constitute a serious violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and military crimes, in particular, violation of the prohibition on forced transfer or deportation in accordance with Article Four of the Geneva Convention,” the report states.

The mission also found that unjustified prolonged stays or unreasonable logistical obstacles on the part of the Russian authorities violate the obligation to facilitate family reunification and contradict the principles enshrined in the Fourth Geneva Convention.

In addition, the Mission believes that the transfer of Ukrainian children by Russia to Russian-controlled territories of Ukraine or to Russian territory “is a neglect of the obligations to create binding mechanisms provided for by the Fourth Geneva Convention to track these children, report their whereabouts and facilitate their repatriation or reunification with their families” and is a violation of international humanitarian law.

In addition, the Mission concluded that subjecting unaccompanied children to adoption or similar assimilation measures “is incompatible with the Fourth Geneva Convention”. Changing the citizenship of Ukrainian children is also a violation of the Convention on the Protection of the Civilian Population in Time of War.

“The Mission also found that the Russian warring party currently does not have an effective mechanism that would facilitate the reunification of Ukrainian children who are in Russia or in Russian-occupied territories with their families. Instead, the Mission sees traces of a constant trend that shows that the efforts of the Russian authorities to allow the movement of children from Ukraine to the Russian Federation do not include steps to further evacuate them to third countries or back to safer areas of Ukraine. The current approach of the Russian authorities promotes permanent stay and potentially unjustified delay repatriation of these children, disregarding the norms of international humanitarian law,” the experts said.

The document states that the Russian Federation not only repeatedly clearly violated the interests of these children, “but also denied their right to identity, the right to a family, the right to be reunited with their family, and also violated their rights to education, access to information, the right to rest, leisure, games, recreation and participation in cultural life and the arts, as well as the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, the right to health and the right to liberty and security”. At the same time, the cumulative consequences of these numerous violations give rise to very serious concerns that the rights of these children to freedom from torture and ill-treatment and other inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment have been violated.

“In addition, the Mission came to the conclusion that the practice of forced relocation and/or deportation of Ukrainian children to the temporarily occupied territories and the territory of the Russian Federation may be a crime against humanity in the form of “deportation or forcible displacement of the population,” the report says.

The document calls on the Russian Federation to “immediately stop the practice of forced relocation or deportation of children from Ukraine to the temporarily occupied territories and to the Russian Federation”, as well as to immediately compile and provide comprehensive lists of the names and locations of all displaced children, cancel their adoption and introduce a corresponding moratorium and actively promote family reunification of all children who were forcibly displaced or deported from Ukraine.

The report was prepared by experts of the OSCE “Moscow mechanism” Elina Steinerte (Latvia), Veronika Bilkova (Czech Republic) and Cecilia Hellestvait (Norway), who have extensive experience in the field of international humanitarian law and human rights.

As reported, the “Moscow Mechanism” is a formal procedure within the OSCE that allows the deployment of an independent international mission to investigate information on human rights violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity, including attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure. Members of such a mission are chosen from a list of experts formed by the OSCE based on submissions from participating states.

The result of the mission’s work is a report with recommendations that will contribute to the prosecution of the guilty in national and international courts or tribunals.

This mechanism is called “Moscow” because it was approved at the Conference on the Human Dimension of the OSCE held in 1991 in Moscow.

In March 2023, 45 OSCE participating states activated the “Moscow Mechanism” to investigate the deportation of Ukrainian children by Russia.