Yale Investigation Confirms Stolen Ukrainian Children in Russian Orphan Databases
It’s always uncomfortable to learn about something we have little power to change. Russia’s widespread presentation of captured Ukrainian children in Russian adoption agencies as if they were Russians, is one of those things.
On today’s “Ukraine the Latest” daily podcast (which has over 60 million listens to date), Francis Dearnley, Assistant Comment Editor, interviewed
Nathaniel A Raymond, Executive Director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the
Yale School of Public Health about Russia capturing and putting Ukrainian
children up for adoption.
Mr. Raymond described his organization’s 20-month investigation of three different Russian adoption databases that contained Ukrainian children identified from safehouse locations in Ukraine that they had been moved to after Russia invaded their homes. He itemized four groups of Ukrainian children that Putin’s been targeting:
- Kids from orphanages in battle-torn areas of Ukraine
- Kids picked up from basements where they hid after Russia’s invasion
- Kids taken from their families in Mariupol and Kherson after Russia took them over
- Kids who thought they were going to a temporary camp in occupied Ukraine
According to Mr. Raymond, re-education programs start in facilities in occupied areas of Ukraine and are tailored by age group. Older children receive Russian military training, while younger children are subject to more intense patriotic Russian inculcation. They are all forbidden access to anything that would continue their Ukrainian identity, including clothing, music, books, or use of the Ukrainian language.
He added that Putin was personally involved in moving
Ukrainian kids into Russia to help make the adoption program compliant with Russian
law. Russia’s declining birth rate is well-documented. According to Reuters, it
is lower than it has been for the past 25 years.
There is low public
awareness of Ukrainian children being coerced to leave Ukraine and being put up for adoption in Russia. At first this issue seems complicated and difficult to
understand. But really, it’s just too horrifying for us to get our heads around.
Please share this or any of the links below. Increasing public awareness is the first step to creating change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHx1l7mSxWw&list=PLJnf_DDTfIVCYlsANGtNkzMeM9Fdmqzxr&index=1
https://hub.conflictobservatory.org/portal/apps/sites/#/home/pages/ukraine-russia-children-adoption
https://www.thepressawards.com/finalists/ukraine-the-latest-s0ai6odz9gmqcp3
