THE UKRAINIAN COMMISSIONER for Children’s Rights was in Dublin this month to highlight the shocking plight of the Ukrainian children who have been abducted by Russia during the ongoing war.
Around 20,000 cases have been documented, but the overall figure seems likely to be many multiples of that. The Commissioner’s visit to Ireland was supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs as well as by the Embassy of Canada.
These Ukrainian children have not only been deprived of their families and placed with Russian ones, but they are also being stripped of their very identities. They are being identified as Russian in official Russian databases and, to use a grotesque euphemism with sinister echoes across history, “re-educated”. Some of the older children are reportedly receiving military training with a view to possible eventual conscription. If Putin’s war continues, that would mean young Ukrainians being forced to fight their own kin and country.
It was precisely on this charge, namely the deportation of Ukrainian children, deemed to be a war crime, that the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for President Putin and his laughably named “Child Right’s Commissioner”, Maria Lvova-Belova. It has been alleged that Russian Presidential aircraft and funds were used in the programme transferring the children from occupied Ukrainian territories. The “germanification” of Polish children was one of the charges brought at Nuremberg, at the first trial in history that identified, defined and punished “crimes against humanity”.
There are at least three reasons for the people of this country to be incensed at the abduction and forced re-categorisation of Ukrainian children.
First and most obviously, there is the shocking nature of what has happened to them. It could be argued to be no worse than, say, the relentless targeting of Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure. However, the wrongness of depriving children of everything that is dear to them, and then denying who they are by manipulating their identity, is egregiously simple and straightforward. Anyone would have to have a heart of stone and a non-functioning conscience not to feel for the children and their families, very especially at Christmas time. I would like to think that even our own motley band of Kremlin apologists in Ireland would baulk at seeking to justify the abduction and forced recategorisation of Ukrainian children.
The second reason we in Ireland have particular reason to empathise with their plight is that we understand particularly well, from the disgrace of our own Mother and Baby and Industrial School scandals, the tragedy of depriving children of their rights, their families and their futures. We are far from alone in having such a history. The launch by Canada of the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children, of which Ireland is a member, is at least in part a reflection of Canada’s attempt to atone for its own national scandal regarding the forced adoption of the children of Indigenous Canadian peoples.
Third, we also retain deeply embedded in our Irish folk memory, an awareness that for a long period of our own history, now thankfully replaced by a warm and respectful relationship with our nearest neighbour, many previous Irish generations, including children, knew all too well what it was to have their national identity challenged and undermined, including their language and their religion. As the old song puts it: “The English came and tried to reach us in their ways/They laughed at us for being what we are.”
One hopes that, at some point, hopefully before too long, peace will be restored to Ukraine. Naturally, this cannot mean accepting the Russian Government’s one-sided war aims. Peace will necessarily involve compromises on both sides, including a water-tight security guarantee for unoccupied Ukraine, equivalent in strength to NATO membership, as well as the prospect of EU membership.
One of the vital issues that would necessarily have to be resolved in the context of any eventual deal is the fate of the Ukrainian children in Russia. It is not an issue that will go away or that can be swept under the carpet. Unless the rights of the children are vindicated, and they are returned to their families and their country, the arrest warrants for Putin and his subordinates will remain in place. Sanctions will be maintained and Russia will remain ostracised, for example, from the sporting world.
In this context, it is therefore of fundamental importance to understand what the Putin regime’s motivation may be in relation to the children. On the one hand, it could see the children as human bargaining chips. In that case, they could be returned quite easily in the context of an overall deal, even if the trauma the children have suffered will remain with them throughout their lives. If, on the other hand, the Kremlin holds fast to the manifest nonsense that Ukraine is not a separate country and that the children are therefore Russian, any end to the war would amount to little more than a cessation of military activities.
It would mean neither real peace nor a restoration of Russia’s position in the world. Presumably, both the ICC arrest warrants and Western sanctions would, in those circumstances, remain in place. Hopefully, for the sake both of the children and of Russia itself, the Russian databases are efficient enough to unwind later the injustice now being inflicted on so many vulnerable children. The Irish Government is to be strongly commended for supporting the Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children.
Bobby McDonagh is a former Irish Ambassador to the EU, UK and Italy. He is an executive coach and commentator on subjects around EU and Brexit.
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