Francesca Lessa and Svitlana Chernykh published an analysis piece in the Washington Post on June 14. In the article, they discuss how thousands of Ukrainian children reportedly have gone missing since the start of the war on Feb. 24 and note that a growing body of evidence suggests that some of these children have been forcibly taken to Russia. According to Ukrainian Permanent Representative to the U.N. Sergiy Kyslytsya, more than 234,000 children had been transferred to Russia by early June.
In the piece, the authors emphasise that the kidnapping of minors is a violation of both the U.N. Genocide Convention and the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yet recent research suggests such tactics have stark precedents. In the past, authoritarian regimes in Spain and in Argentina, among others, resorted to child kidnapping to target their opponents — just as these regimes entered their most lethal and repressive phases. These historical cases offer lessons about how Ukraine can hold perpetrators accountable, the authors argue.
You can read the full article here.