Evidence of meeting #37 for Subcommittee on International Human Rights in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was children.
A video is available from Parliament.
International Law Expert, International Center for Ukrainian Victory
—and this is not a legitimate evacuation.
Thank you.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you.
To really understand the anatomy of this, there are cases of children being taken without any pretense of parental consent from the battlefield or from orphanages, and then there is the case of extreme coercion, in which Russia invades Ukraine, engages in indiscriminate bombardment of civilians, denies humanitarian corridors and then tells parents that the only option for the safety of the children is effectively to give us your children or we're going to kill them, and then they're taken to Russia. It's in these kinds of ways that Russia undertakes this policy. Is that a fair summary of what's unfolding?
Board Member, International Center for Ukrainian Victory
Yes, and I'll add a few other options, because the policy of Russia doesn't have one face.
Many people are suffering in occupied territories because adults and families know that if they don't give their children a chance to enrol in Russia's very aggressive education system and involve their children in it.... We already have testimony that the Russian administration was sharing information that without that enrolment, their children would be adopted by others. Those parents who are still with their children in occupied territories under Russian government control will be separated from their families if they do not attend the Russian schools with pro-Russian education full of Russian propaganda, so this is—
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
The threat of abduction is explicitly being used as a tool to intimidate people and to push them to comply with what the occupiers want.
Board Member, International Center for Ukrainian Victory
Yes, as sanctions. Separation of the family is a sanction against parents who will not give their children to the Russian education system.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
I may have to come back to this, because I have only one minute left, but I want to probe the Russian narrative and propaganda involved here. I've seen that the architect of this policy, Ms. Lvova-Belova, has herself adopted 18 children. You mentioned people taking selfies.
What is the story they are trying to tell through what they're doing here?
International Law Expert, International Center for Ukrainian Victory
If I may, I would also like to note, regarding your previous statement, that I wouldn't say that Russian authorities threaten to kill children if their parents don't give them. It would not be fair. They just say that there is a high risk that they will die because of the war, because of missiles, if they are not relocated through the corridors.
As for your next question, if we are talking about Maria Lvova-Belova and their policy, they all try to create a picture in which they are saving Ukrainian children from the war. They are saving Ukrainian children from this—
International Law Expert, International Center for Ukrainian Victory
I'm sorry?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Fayçal El-Khoury
The time is over. I will give you several seconds if you want to wrap it up, please.
International Law Expert, International Center for Ukrainian Victory
Yes, thanks.
They are trying to say that they are saving Ukrainian children and that their delegation is legitimate according to international law.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Fayçal El-Khoury
Thank you.
Mr. Denis Trudel will now take the floor for five minutes.
Bloc
Denis Trudel Bloc Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Raymond, earlier you talked about children abducted from the battlefield. I imagine that no trace of these children is ever found.
On the one hand, do we know where they are and in what conditions they are being held? Also, are there children who are forcibly abducted? Based on the various techniques we hear about, there is the threat of adoption in Russia and the forcible signing of consent forms. Are there cases of children returning to their parents? What do we know about the psychological state of these children?
Executive Director, Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab
It is very important to state clearly that the children who have been returned to date, the 300, due in part to the incredible efforts of Save Ukraine, are almost entirely children from the camp kids population.
As it relates to those who were in the Ukrainian state institutions, there has not been any return, to our knowledge, of those kids or the kids from infiltration or the battlefield. At this point it's almost entirely kids who were in the camp system.
This is important because it means that for groups three and four, the battlefield infiltration kids, we don't even have a denominator in terms of comparing how many exist in that population. The difficulty, the absolute complexity of trying to figure out which kids in the battlefield scenarios are missing because they're dead or missing because they're in Russian custody is almost impossible in the current conditions.
We believe the kids in those groups that we know the least about are in the Russian national adoption system, and we are working quickly to confirm that and to report publicly on it.
Bloc
Denis Trudel Bloc Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
You talked about camps. Can you tell us what those camps are and in what conditions the children are being held?
Executive Director, Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab
As was alluded to by our colleagues, the camp system actually goes back to the Stalin era and the Soviet Union's pioneer camps.
In the case of Crimea, one facility, Artek, was built by Stalin. In the case of other facilities such as those in Moscow, they're often referred to as family centres. There are some that are thematic in nature. One is a music camp. There is a computer science camp. They differ based on age groups, and the conditions differ as well.
The fact is that we have only 300 kids back and that gives us a very minimal base of evidence right now to understand the conditions inside the camps. All we have as the primary base of evidence on conditions in the camps are the statements of the Russians themselves and the photos and videos they release on websites. We need to have access for the International Committee of the Red Cross and UN access to be able to figure out exactly how these kids are being held. We don't know.
Bloc
Denis Trudel Bloc Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
I have a question for all three of you.
Do you consider everything you are telling us about today to be war crimes? Would you even go so far as to say that the fact that Russia is abducting children across Ukraine to convert them, without anyone being able to verify their wellbeing, is a crime against humanity?
Executive Director, Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab
Yes.
Board Member, International Center for Ukrainian Victory
Yes. I totally agree. This is a crime against humanity, but we need to develop our case on genocide, I believe.
International Law Expert, International Center for Ukrainian Victory
I'm sorry. I was just logged out. Could you please repeat the question?
Denis Trudel Bloc Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
My question was about everything we have heard this morning and about the 6,000 children who were kidnapped, in one way or another, by Russia on the battlefields of the war in Ukraine.
Do you consider that a crime against humanity?
International Law Expert, International Center for Ukrainian Victory
Well, actually, we are not here as prosecutors and judges to establish that these are the particular crimes, but for me, these are obviously war crimes as established by article 8 of the Rome Statute. To be determined as crimes against humanity, the widespread and systematic nature of such actions should be established by the law enforcement authority and by the court.
As for me, the deportation of Ukrainian children looks more like the crime of genocide as it is defined by the 1948 genocide convention and also by article 6 of the Rome Statute. Despite the fact that these children were not physically or biologically destroyed or killed, the forcible deportation of children from one group to another group is considered genocide, as it deprives such a group of the chance for survival and their subsequent existence. By the courts—