Children: Impact of International Conflict

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, all of us are grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for initiating such an important and timely debate. The House will discuss Sudan tomorrow, but, with some 11 million people displaced, 19 million children out of school and the catastrophic spread of famine throughout Sudan, the noble Baroness was of course right to raise it, as others have.

Globally, there is a growing trend of targeting children during conflict and atrocity crimes, whether to kill, injure, abduct or abuse them, or to turn them into child soldiers, imposing unimaginable suffering on the lives of countless children. International law is clear that such targeting of children is a crime—however, too often, a low-level response and impunity send a different message.

Although I will focus my brief remarks on children abducted during Putin’s war in Ukraine, can the Minister update us on both the plight of the over 2,600 missing Yazidi women and children—some of whose families I met during a visit to northern Iraq and who were alluded to in passing by the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon—and the plight of Leah Sharibu, the 14 year-old Nigerian girl abducted by Boko Haram, raped, forcibly converted and still held by jihadists? I have raised her case since she was abducted six years ago.

Russia’s crimes in Ukraine are from the same stable and they are having a devastating impact on children. Some have died and others are injured, as Putin’s regime has targeted schools, children’s hospitals and family homes—war crimes leading to the displacement of millions of children. In addition, thousands have been abducted, forcibly exiled to Russia and subject to expedited adoptions. This had its origins in 2014 in Crimea, when Russia perversely called their trains used to transport children “trains of hope”. We know from the testimonies of rescued children that they have been subjected to indoctrination, told to become Russian and seen their Ukrainian identity destroyed.

In response, in March 2023, the ICC’s pre-trial chamber issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Mrs Maria Lvova-Belova, the Commissioner for Children’s Rights, citing their responsibility for the war crimes of unlawful deportation of population and of unlawful transfer of population—both refer to children—from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, in prejudice of Ukrainian children.

On 20 August, Save Ukraine and Bring Kids Back UA helped 12 more Ukrainian children and their families to leave temporary accommodation. The number of Ukrainian children who returned from Russia and the temporarily occupied territories has reached 466, but many more remain in Russia, and it must be our priority to get them out and reunite them with their families. I hope that the Minister can tell us what we have been doing to assist the ICC in those efforts.