Parents Rally as Efforts to Recover Ukraine’s Abducted Children Stall

Dutch children’s organization Emile Foundation held a press conference in Paris on Monday to raise awareness of the more than 20,000 Ukrainian children abducted and forcibly deported to Russia since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, as per AFP.

Mariam Lambert, one of its co-founders, told AFP that it was time to give the parents of abducted children “a voice.”

The press conference was attended by the parents and guardians of some of the abducted children, who told journalists that Russia is unwilling to engage with any of their requests to return them.

“Celebrities are talking about this, politicians are talking about this, but not the mothers,” Lambert told AFP. She claims that her organization has helped return 48 children to Ukraine, by securing the help of countries – such as the US, Slovakia and Brazil – that Russia will engage with.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Children’s Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova on the grounds of their involvement in the forced deportations. For the warrants to be upheld, however, Putin and Lvova-Belova would have to visit a country willing to uphold them.

Ukraine’s intelligence and diplomatic services are also working to bring the children home using a variety of strategies. Last month, Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SZRU) identified 339 Ukrainian children abducted to Russia, with a view to imposing sanctions on the Russian individuals and institutions involved.

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Academic researchers, too, have a part to play. In the US, the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) is responsible for tracking down tens of thousands of Ukrainian children forcibly deported to Russia or the occupied territories.

On Nov. 3, however, HRL Executive Director Nathaniel Raymond gave an interview to the Kyiv Post explaining that – despite public expressions of support for HRL’s work by the US government – their funding has been severed. 

“We run out of money sometime between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve,” Raymond told the Kyiv Post. 

An internal estimate from what may be their final report puts the total number of abducted Ukrainian children at 35,000.