The United States and 44 other countries, with support from Ukraine, appealed to the Moscow Mechanism of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) by calling on the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the OSCE to establish an expert mission to investigate allegations of forced deportation of Ukrainian children to the Russian Federation.”In times of war, children are the most vulnerable and require special care and protection,” the State Department said in a press release Thursday. – Forcible transfer and deportation of children separated from their families or legal guardians poses the risk of further abuse. We urge the relevant authorities to fully cooperate with the expert mission and facilitate its work. The United States and our partners remain firmly committed to supporting Ukraine and holding the Russian Federation accountable for inhumane and wrongful acts.The tasks of the expert mission will include the collection, consolidation and analysis of any evidence likely to be submitted to the competent prosecution mechanisms, as well as to the national, regional or international courts or tribunals that may have jurisdiction.The call follows the April and July 2022 OSCE Moscow Mechanism mission reports requested by the United States and 44 other countries. These investigations have documented widespread violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by Russian forces in Ukraine.The reports presented extensive evidence of direct attacks on civilians, attacks on medical facilities, rape, torture, summary executions, looting and forced deportation of civilians to Russia, including children, which are “clear patterns of serious violations of international humanitarian rights attributed primarily to the armed forces of Russia…in territories under the effective control of the Russian Federation.”
The United States called on the OSCE to create a group to study the data on the forced deportation of Ukrainian children to the Russian Federation
