Ukraine

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Friday 26th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, of which I am the director, has been working with Ukraine on war crimes. I co-chair the taskforce for the return of the children who have been taken from Ukraine to Russia. The arbitrary removal of the children of a nation is a war crime: it is a legal outrage and is morally reprehensible.

Over the last two years, Russian officials and military have transferred thousands of children out of Ukraine and to the huge land mass that is Russia. Some have been placed in institutions in far-flung regions, and others with foster families; some of the very young have been put up for adoption. The impact on a population at war is immeasurable. Russia’s claim that the children were being taken out of the theatre of war for their own well-being does not bear examination. The warrants issued by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court were based on evidence and a prima facie case of crimes being committed contrary to the Rome Statute and the Geneva Convention.

The question of how many children have been removed is debated. Some deportations involved emptying institutions and orphanages of their inhabitant children and transporting them across the border; others involved removing children from hospitals where they were being treated after bombings; and others involved taking children from the occupied territories, with parental consent, to so-called summer schools, but then never returning them. Ukraine puts the figure at 19,546—I say it as precisely as that because I was with the delegation at Davos only a week or so ago. Up to February last year, the Yale University Conflict Observatory, using open-source materials, put the figure at 7,000. However, I took evidence from it just before Christmas, and it now says that the figure is double that; it anticipates that the figure will increase as it works through the open-source material. It is going to be close to what the Ukrainians say.

The Yale observatory research also shows that 2,442 disabled children from Russian-occupied Ukraine have been transferred to facilities in Belarus, supposedly for medical treatment. There have been attempts to recover some of these children. The Pope got one back, and Qatar managed to get a handful here and there. However, the majority of those who have returned—just over 500—were located by their own families or by Ukrainian NGOs that boldly travelled into the lion’s den, or they were adolescent teenagers who ran away to get back home.

You have to ask the question, why? What is the real purpose of taking children from their homeland? Young people who have managed to return home give accounts of a determined policy of re-education, with daily classes to show that their identity is really Russian and that Ukraine is a Russian region, not a genuine nation. The lessons are all conducted in Russian; it is basically indoctrination about these children’s history. The effect is clear: it is subversion to sap political will and undermine resolve, and it is another way of destroying identity. The Ukrainian population is demoralised by the capture of their young. It eats at the hearts of families and communities.

You may ask me, what is the legal position? All I can say is that there is no shortage of law. There is no single treaty to protect children in conflict, but the Geneva conventions, international humanitarian law, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the genocide convention, other human rights law instruments, the Rome statute and international criminal law all state clearly that children affected by armed conflict are entitled to special respect and protection. There is a clear ban on forcible transfer, deportation and adoption. However, no enforcement mechanisms can work while war is in progress unless steps are taken—as they have been in Gaza—to create a pause in hostilities and humanitarian corridors, having arranged in advance a recognition of certain categories of children and negotiated with entities inside Russia for those children to be returned in the gap created. This will be created only with international pressure.

Too little has been said about this terrible crime. The worst accounts are of children as young as three and four being placed for adoption in Russia. Their chances of ever being recovered at the end of some war are diminishing by the month. The taking of children is a tragedy that demands action by the international community. So I ask the Minister, who I know is deeply committed to these issues: what can the United Kingdom do? The President of Ukraine has created an action plan to Bring the Kids Back, as he entitles it. He has a coalition of nations which Britain has signed up to. Can Britain lead in this, given our status as a nation that is committed to the protection and well-being of children, and to international rules around war?

The task force I am heading is very much involved in negotiating some of this, but we need to engage the global South. We need to have the nations that are remaining neutral and standing on the sidelines for all sorts of reasons. In the Commonwealth, there are many nations taking that position. There is a great deal that can be done of a diplomatic nature to bring on board people who may not want to take a position on the actual war but are still outraged by the taking of children. We need to bring those people on board and Britain’s voice will be vital in doing that. That is what the President’s office seeks. My co-chair is the chef de cabinet, Andriy Yermak. He wants nations to use their connections with other nations to bring them on board in this effort. It must be done now; there is an urgency about it and I hope the Government will take steps.