Commentary for zn.ua: what happened to children in evacuation in Turkey and what is happening every day in Ukraine
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At the beginning of the full-scale war, just like in 2014, the state was not ready to evacuate orphans and children deprived of parental care from boarding schools that were on the front line in time. Unfortunately, some of these institutions ended up under occupation, and some were deported. For the Russian Federation, this became a pretext for manipulation and blackmail, as well as illegal adoptions of Ukrainian children by Russian citizens. And for Ukraine, it became a big headache to get their children back home.
Just like eight years earlier, the evacuation of Ukrainian children and families from dangerous areas in 2022 was once again borne by charitable foundations, NGOs, and volunteers. With varying degrees of success.
“We have evacuated the largest number of children since World War II,” said representatives of one such organization, the Ruslan Shostak Charitable Foundation, owner of the EVA and VARUS chains, for several years in a row. And in late November, Slidstvo.info published an investigation into violations of the rights of children evacuated by the foundation from the Dnipro region and placed in hotels in Turkey.
The children were beaten, abused, and forced to participate in the film’s commercials, and two boarding school students became pregnant by Turks and gave birth to children after returning to Ukraine last year. However, the only one who was punished was the head tutor, who was… demoted to a physical education teacher, the authors of the film say.
The investigation caused a great deal of resonance and outrage against the Foundation on social media. “I believe such public investigations are useful for child protection. The main thing is that conclusions are drawn, children receive the necessary assistance and protection, and those responsible must be held accountable,” Daria Kasyanova, national program director of the international charity organization SOS Children’s Villages Ukraine and chairman of the board of the Ukrainian Child Rights Network, wrote on her Facebook page.