(AGENPARL) - Roma, 12 Aprile 2023 - (AGENPARL) – KREMLIN mer 12 aprile 2023
Russia’s Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights addressed an informal Arria-Formula Meeting of the UN Security Council titled Children and Armed Conflict: Ukraine Crisis. Evacuating Children from Conflict Zone.
The meeting was initiated by Russia and was chaired by Permanent
Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya.
The speakers for Russia were Maria Lvova-Belova, Commissioner for Human Rights
of the Donetsk People’s Republic Darya Morozova, Adviser on Children’s Rights
to the Acting Head of the Donetsk People’s Republic Eleonora Fedorenko, Head of the Children’s Division of the Donetsk Republican Trauma Centre Yevgeny
Zhilitsyn, and Alexei Petrov, Adviser to the Office of the Commissioner for Children’s Rights and head of the Into the Hands of Children humanitarian
drive.
Maria Lvova-Belva expressed hope that the high-level meeting on this
international platform would promote a constructive discussion of the facts
rather than speculation and unsubstantiated allegations, because Russia, unlike
Ukraine, is not using children for propaganda purposes. In this connection, she
described absolutely unacceptable situations when the children who remained in Russia were subjected to pressure and persecution by Ukraine, asked to make
duplicitous videos and lured out of Russia through blackmail.
The Commissioner pointed out that since February 2022 over 5 million
people, including over 730,000 children, had gone to Russian regions from
Ukraine and the Donbass republics. About 2,000 of these children lived in orphanages and went to Russia with orphanage directors and staff at the request
of the heads of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics. A considerable number
of these children have returned to their orphanages, about 400 children have
been moved to orphanages across Russia because of continuing Ukrainian shelling
attacks, and 358 have been assigned to Russian foster families. Also, 22
children from Mariupol have been tentatively assigned to foster families. They
have not been formally adopted.
In addition, the Office of the Children’s Rights Commissioner is working
energetically to reunite the families that have been divided due to the hostilities, which includes returning children to relatives in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and other Ukrainian regions from recreation centres in the Krasnodar Territory and the Republic of Crimea. For example, nine families have
been reunited through the office’s efforts, which means that 16 children have
been returned to their parents.
The Commissioner noted that she was in touch with international
organisations on issues of assistance for children in conditions of the special
military operation. During her previous meetings with the representatives of UNICEF, the UN Refugee Agency and the International Committee of the Red Cross,
she provided full information about the displaced children and explained the situation with their family placement. Every possible assistance is being given
to reunite families.
Maria Lvova-Belova pointed out that there was absolutely no official
contact with Ukrainian representatives. Instead, untenable allegations have
been made about the Russian Office of the Children’s Rights Commissioner in the media and social networks, which have become an integral part of the campaign
to discredit Russia. She said this was nothing more than an attempt to camouflage the Ukrainian authorities’ irresponsible actions regarding children.
Since 2014, Ukraine has not done anything to protect the rights of children in Donbass.
Vasily Nebenzya outlined the main goal of the informal meeting as unmasking the glaring double standards of the collective West, dispelling the myths promoted by the Western and Ukrainian media, and providing objective
first-hand information on the evacuation of children from Donbass and measures
being taken to ensure their safety, life and well-being. He pointed out that
Kiev, which had disregarded its responsibility for protecting children since
2014, was cynically using that subject in its anti-Russia information warfare,
whereas Russia had not practiced forced adoption, had not prevented children
from maintaining contacts and interacting with their families and dear ones,
and had tried to reunite them.
Information about the activities of the Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights in conditions of the special miliary operation is available
in full on the website in the bulletin prepared by the Commissioner’s Office.
Fonte/Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/administration/70900
