DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR ISOBEL COLEMAN: Vitayu. President Zelenskyy, thank you for bringing us together to discuss the urgent issue of how the international community can help return Ukraine’s children to their families and to safety.
The United States is proud to join our Ukrainian and international partners today for the first meeting of the International Coalition of Countries for the Return of Ukrainian Children.
The creation of this coalition marks an important step toward achieving our shared goals: to reunite every abducted Ukrainian child with their families; to restore the health, safety, and dignity of these displaced children; and to prevent further such injustices from occurring in the future.
No child should experience the trauma of abduction.
No parent should feel the pain of being senselessly robbed of a child.
Yet since February 2022, Russian occupiers have mercilessly coerced, deceived, and abducted thousands of Ukrainian children, tearing them away from their lives, their family, and their country.
Of the more than 19,000 children who have been deported or forcibly displaced from Ukraine since February 2022, fewer than two percent have been returned home.
Russia’s authorities have relied on brutality and intimidation, duplicity and deceit to rob families of their loved ones.
They have explicitly targeted some of Ukraine’s most vulnerable – including orphans and children with disabilities – detaining them in faraway Russian institutions; and, in some cases, even changing their names to diminish their chances of ever returning home.
And for the children who have been returned from Russia to Ukraine, the path to recovery is fraught.
Many have suffered gravely at the hands of the Russian authorities.
While detained, children were told by their captors that their parents had abandoned them; and they’ve been punished just for speaking Ukrainian.
Ripping children from their families and their country is unconscionable, and a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
We all must stand against this.
The United States stands strongly with Ukraine in its fight to bring every one of their country’s stolen children back home.
As part of this work, USAID is proud to support Save Ukraine, a Ukrainian non-governmental organization dedicated to supporting the Ukrainian people through the terrors of Russia’s war, including by rescuing abducted children and restoring them to their families.
Take 16 year old Anastasia: When Russian forces invaded Anastasia’s hometown of Kherson, they offered her a “holiday” away from war, in occupied Crimea.
But as days turned into weeks, Anastasia realized there was no intention of allowing her to return home.
Thanks to Save Ukraine, Anastasia’s mother was able to retrieve her daughter and rescue her from harm’s way.
To date, Save Ukraine has organized 13 rescue missions, resulting in the safe return of 213 Ukrainian children – that’s more than half of the total rescues accomplished.
But it’s not nearly enough.
Beyond our support to Save Ukraine, USAID funds a range of organizations that monitor and map locations of children held captive in Russia and Belarus, and that provide guidance to parents searching for their children.
And as you heard from my State Department colleagues, the U.S. government also supports a number of justice initiatives, through Yale University and other institutions, aimed at documenting Russia’s systematic approach to the forcible transfer and attempted indoctrination of Ukrainian children.
The United States will continue to demand that Russia comply with its obligations to provide disclosure about, and access to, detained civilians under international humanitarian law.
We will continue to stand with the Ukrainian people, and all those in the international community who demand justice.
So the call is clear: We need urgent action to get these children home.
We must work together – as governments, civil society, and international organizations.
Today’s conference must mark the next phase in a coordinated effort by the international community to ensure these Ukrainian children have the future they deserve.
Thank you and Slava Ukraini!