There are “credible allegations” of unaccompanied children being forcibly transferred from Ukraine to Russia, the UN’s deputy secretary-general for human rights said on Wednesday, raising concerns about their possible adoption by Russian families.
“There are credible allegations of forced transfers of unaccompanied children to Russian-occupied territory or to the Russian Federation itself,” Ilze Brands Kehris told a UN Security Council meeting on forced displacement in Ukraine.
“We are concerned that the Russian authorities have adopted a simplified procedure for granting Russian citizenship to children who are not in the care of their parents, and that these children may be adopted by Russian families,” he said.
He also indicated that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, of which he is a member, has been able to “confirm” that the Russian armed forces have installed “triage” centers, a form of security checks and collection of personal data and data biometrics, a practice that Human Rights Watch denounced last week in a report on the forced displacement of civilians.
These controls apply to people leaving a combat zone or crossing territory under Russian control. “We are concerned that such checks, and the arrests that follow, are carried out outside any legal framework and do not respect the principles of necessity and proportionality,” he said, referring to “reliable information of” numerous human rights violations.
The High Commission itself was able to “document” cases where the people subject to this “leak” were subjected to strip searches, sometimes having to strip. “We are particularly concerned about the risk of sexual abuse that women and girls face during these screening procedures,” she added.
The United States, at the origin of this Security Council meeting with Albania, on Wednesday accused the office of Russian President Vladimir Putin of directly organizing the forced displacement of thousands of Ukrainians to Russia. Operations carried out “as part of their efforts to annex parts of the Ukrainian territories under their control,” said a deputy spokesman for US diplomacy.
Several other members of the Security Council, including France and the United Kingdom, have also raised concerns about testimonies of forced displacement.
The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vassili Nebenzia, rejected all these “unfounded” accusations, calling them “legends”. Ukrainians going to Russia are subject “to a registration procedure and not to a control”, as in Poland or in other EU countries that host refugees, he assured.
“We prefer to talk about real problems than invented problems. After wasting time today talking about the latest guesses and fantasies, we propose that tomorrow we talk about real threats to peace, the supply of weapons to Ukraine by foreign states, the ambassador said.
