The way home: reintegration of children from the occupation

Natalia Humeniuk tells LB.ua about the way of leaving the temporarily occupied territories and successful reintegration of children. She works as a case manager at the Ukrainian Child Rights Network. She meets children who have escaped from the occupation at the Domanovo checkpoint, accompanies them to Kyiv, and then helps them get back on their feet and start a new life.

– At the beginning of the summer, I met a guy who was 21 years old at the time. He was leaving the Donetsk region, he had been living in the occupation since 2014,” she says. “Moreover, his father fought on the side of the DPR. And that guy, after waiting until he turned eighteen and became more or less independent, went to work to earn a certain amount of money to leave. When he came out at the checkpoint, he was shaking with nervous tension. His clothes were dirty and he was exhausted. He had spent two months getting here on his own. Later he said that he just couldn’t stand what was happening around him and in his own family anymore.

According to Natalia, it is mostly young people between the ages of 16 and 23 who are leaving the occupation. They want to get higher education here and see their lives here. But for the boys, the first reason is still the fear that they will be drafted into the Russian army.

And once they get to the territory controlled by Ukraine, they are afraid that they will be immediately taken away by the TCC, because this is what the Russians intimidated them with. And because of this zombification, it takes months before they can move freely around the city. They also ask if they can speak Russian.

– For them, it was absolutely normal that in the middle of the night the military could break into a house, turn everything upside down, check phones, so that you would not study at a Ukrainian school, God forbid. And they say: “What is there to talk about? “At the same time, children did not have normal access to information to form their own opinions about the war, about what was happening outside the occupation, and that they were not in danger here. That is, the Russians used total restrictions and intimidation to prevent children from leaving. They themselves say that we are needed there to become meat on the front line and fight against our own people. This is heard everywhere.

There are those who managed to avoid going to school by hiding at home. However, these are still isolated cases. And in the fourth year of the occupation, it is hardly possible. The majority, of course, are forced to attend educational institutions, otherwise the occupation guardianship authorities threaten parents with the removal of their children from the family. And, finally, children come back from the occupation in different conditions.

– Once I heard about the lost connection syndrome in the context of children who have been under occupation for a long time. This is something we are already noticing after these three years. They no longer quite understand who they really are, what culture they are connected to, what country they are connected to. As a result of this zombification, they no longer really feel that they are Ukrainians, but they don’t want to be Russians either. They are confused, lost children between two worlds. That’s what I would call them. But none of them wants to go back.

And when a child crosses the border, the most important thing, Natalia explains, is that someone takes them by the hand to a safe place. If someone’s safe place is their relatives, they hand them over to their relatives. For some, it’s a dormitory or some center where they are accommodated because they have no one else. And then you need to bring them to this center and introduce them to the people who live there. We need to cover their basic needs, help them with documents and education, and make up for their educational losses. For example, this year, many girls and boys arrived in the spring with the aim of studying.

Read the full article on LB.ua.