kyiv claims that 20,000 children have been taken from Ukraine to Russia without the consent of their families or guardians.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has urged Russia to end the forcible transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine and return them to their families.
Last month, a panel of 18 independent experts pressed Russia on deportation allegations while reviewing its record.
Its conclusions, published Thursday, call on Russia to “end the forcible transfer or deportation of children from occupied Ukrainian territory.”
Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has argued that “placements of evacuee children are organized, first and foremost, at their request and with their consent.”
However, kyiv has reported that 20,000 children have been taken from Ukraine to Russia without the consent of their families or guardians, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) is seeking the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin for alleged illegal deportation of children, a accusation that the Kremlin denies.
Russian Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova is also accused of abducting children from Ukraine and the ICC has issued an arrest warrant for her.
The UN committee demanded that Moscow investigate war crimes allegations against Lvova-Belova, but did not mention Putin.
The committee also called on Moscow to provide information on how many children were taken from Ukraine and where they live, so that “parents or legal representatives can trace them, including by identifying such children and registering their paternity, and ensuring that the children be returned.” to their families and communities as soon as possible.”
They expressed concern about the impact Russia's war in Ukraine is having on children, describing the “killings and injuries of hundreds of children as a result of indiscriminate attacks…with explosive weapons.”
However, Russia has argued that it has only been protecting vulnerable children from a war zone.
At the January hearing in Geneva, the head of the Russian delegation, Alexey Vovchenko, deputy minister of labor and social protection, denied that any Ukrainians had been forcibly expelled from their country. He said Russia had taken in 4.8 million residents of Ukraine, including 770,000 children.
But UN committee chair Ann Skelton said committee members and the Russian delegation had been “talking to each other” at the meeting.
“In the dialogue we often discovered that we used one type of terminology and they used another,” he said.
“We were using the word 'adoption' and they were denying that it was adoption and talking about 'child rearing'.”
Last year, the UN added Russia to a list of countries that violate children's rights in conflict, referring to boys and girls who died during attacks on schools and hospitals in Ukraine.
