A girl passes across a puppy to a boy, evacuees from the places of battles in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as they wait in the carriage of a train going to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv at railway station in Pokrovsk, Donetsk region on 15 June, 2022, as the Russian-Ukraine war enters its 112th day. Photo: Anatolii STEPANOV / AFP
UN concerned over adoption of Ukrainian children in Russia
UN official said adoption of Ukrainian children should never occur immediately after emergencies as they can not be assumed to be orphans
A girl passes across a puppy to a boy, evacuees from the places of battles in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as they wait in the carriage of a train going to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv at railway station in Pokrovsk, Donetsk region on 15 June, 2022, as the Russian-Ukraine war enters its 112th day. Photo: Anatolii STEPANOV / AFP
Ukrainian children should not be adopted in Russia, where several thousand young people are believed to have been moved since Moscow’s February invasion, a UN official said Tuesday.
“We’re reiterating, including to the Russian Federation, that adoption should never occur during or immediately after emergencies,”
Asfhan Khan, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) regional director for Europe and Central Asia, told reporters.
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ADOPTION OF UKRAINIAN CHILDREN
Such children cannot be assumed to be orphans, and “any decision to move any child must be grounded in their best interests and any movement must be voluntary. Parents need to provide informed consent,” said the official, who had just returned from a visit to Ukraine.
“Regarding children that have been sent to Russia, we’re working closely to see with ombudspersons and networks how best we can document those cases,”
Khan said, adding that there is currently no access to those children.
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‘FORCED ADOPTION’
The United Nations had already expressed concern in early March about the risk of forced adoption of Ukrainian children, especially the some 91 000 who were living in institutions or boarding schools at the beginning of the war, many of them located in the country’s east.
© Agence France-Presse
