Persistent violations of international law, of human rights – what else can Russia, Putin’s Russia, be guilty of? And what else can the West allow without neglecting its responsibility to uphold values?
The latest report, in this case from the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, should now finally be brought up by the world community. At least the part with functioning civil societies. You must respond to it in an appropriate, unequivocal, harsh manner.
Stephan Andreas Casdorff is the publisher of the Tagesspiegel. He thinks that children’s rights are great rights. That’s why they have to be protected. Both.
Why is? About children trafficked from Russian-controlled Ukrainian areas into Russia, as far as Siberia and the Pacific coast, or into areas still occupied by Russia. About orphans living in orphanages and about children who have been separated from their parents.
Three women lawyers wrote the report for the OSCE
By deporting children from Ukraine, Russia has committed gross violations of human rights, children’s rights, the Geneva Conventions involving war crimes and alleged crimes against humanity.
16,000
Children have been kidnapped since the invasion began in February 2022, Ukrainian authorities say.
The three lawyers from the Czech Republic, Norway and Latvia who wrote the report for the OSCE assume several hundred thousand children, as do some human rights organizations. Ukrainian authorities say more than 16,000 children have been kidnapped since the invasion began in February 2022. And according to a study by Yale University in the USA, 6,000 Ukrainian children are said to have been sent to re-education camps.
A purely subjective view, based only on opinions? Not even close. The famous Hannah Arendt knew that anyone who takes facts as mere opinions is escaping from reality. And she also dealt with war crimes throughout her life.
The mere fact that this has happened, even in large numbers, is not disputed. The Russians do not fundamentally deny this either. They say: all because of the danger of war.
What’s more, children had to stay in the camps, even several at a time. They were never returned to their parents from so-called convalescent camps.
The great indignation is – yet – missing
One can therefore rightly come to the conclusion that Russia is guilty on a thousand counts. It was kidnapped and covered up, investigations were hindered and relatives were harassed in every way.
Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin and Russian child rights commissioner Maria Lwova-Belowa.
When kidnapping becomes a weapon: This also means that the Russian national way of thinking was and should be drummed into the children for the purpose of re-education. In addition, girls and boys were given new birth certificates with a forged date and place of birth.
The report has been presented to the OSCE Council in Vienna, but it has not yet caused the outrage that the result deserves. Ukraine cooperated, Russia did not, not even responded.
Amnesty is helping those who are still uncertain with an expert’s report. He states: “In the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, genocide is not only defined as the killing of people. It is also genocide, according to the Criminal Court, to take children out of a national group and impose on them a different environment and ideology.”
Reasons upon reasons to bring Russia before the International Criminal Court in the guise of Vladimir Putin and his – how ironic – “Child Rights Commissioner” Maria Lwova-Belowa. Arrest warrants have been issued, now it’s a matter of enforcing them.
There are not many ways to hold those responsible to account – in Russia itself they are protected from access for the time being. But if Russia’s war of aggression fails in the end, that at least increases the chance of a change of power – and perhaps Moscow’s willingness to open up to civil society again. Here lies the responsibility of the West. unmistakable.
