Save Their Childhoods
But the last three years have brought a new level of misery to the most vulnerable group of innocents in, among other regions, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. In this post-Soviet sphere, children’s rights in de facto but unrecognized territories, such as Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, and Crimea, is a political taboo. Yet these places are human rights dystopias where many human rights violations go unreported.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) emphasizes that states must respect a child's right to preserve their identity, ensure that children are not separated from their parents, and provide special protection for those deprived of a family environment. The political will to enforce this, however, varies from case to case. But throughout the unrecognized territories of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, the political will is weak to nonexistent. The controlling or occupying authorities are legally responsible for ensuring human rights broadly and children’s rights specifically, but this obligation is often overlooked or ignored. This article focuses on the violation of children’s rights in Nagorno-Karabakh and Ukraine.
Nagorno-Karabakh: Family Separations
Nagorno-Karabakh, claimed by Armenia and Azerbaijan, has been a scene of conflict for decades. The region’s declaration of independence in 1991 from Soviet Azerbaijan led to a war that left 30,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands displaced. A Russian-brokered ceasefire in 1994 left Nagorno-Karabakh de facto independent but heavily reliant on Armenia. Despite sporadic clashes and upsurges of violence, the region remained relatively stable until 2020, when Azerbaijan launched an offensive that recaptured part of the territory.
A ten-month Azeri blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh starting in December 2022 left approximately 30,000 children in the region malnourished. Then, with the launching of a September 2023 Azeri military offensive, conditions deteriorated further. The fighting saw more than 200 civilians killed and 400 wounded, and more than 10,000 people, including women and children, displaced, all grappling with urgent humanitarian needs. The suffering was exacerbated after the formal dissolution of Nagorno-Karabakh on January 1, 2024, prompted the exodus from the territory of the ethnic Armenian population.
In the interim, the fighting led to human rights violations, especially children’s rights to be with their families. For this reason, ill children did not dare seek medical treatment in Armenia out of fear that their reunification with family would be difficult or impossible. The Human Rights Defender of Armenia reported in early 2023 that about 50 children were left without parental care in Nagorno-Karabakh. Among them were minors left alone at home. In the village of Msmna, two youths aged 11 and 13 were left for more than 60 days without a guardian because their parents left for a funeral in Armenia before the road connecting the country and Nagorno-Karabakh closed. At the time the report was issued, they had not yet been able to return. In another case, the mother of an eight-month-old infant left the town of Stepanakert for a day trip to Yerevan, the Armenian capital. She could return only 28 days later, after Red Cross mediation.
In another case of violated rights, a group of 18 children, who had traveled to participate in a concert, were stranded at the Nagorno-Karabakh border for 47 days before being allowed to reunite with their families. Even after being cleared through, and despite being accompanied by Russian peacekeepers, the children’s minivan was stopped and checked by armed Azeri soldiers. Two children fainted from fear.
Nagorno-Karabakh is now bereft of ethnic Armenians, and most of the community’s children, having fled with their families to Armenia, are in legal limbo. It is unclear if they are refugees or citizens. Their basic human rights, including those to housing, education, and health care are guaranteed by the Armenian government, but to date no assessment of the services they are receiving has been made.
The primary obstacle to a strategy for protecting the human rights of displaced Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh is increasing Azeri pressure to downplay these rights in exchange for a peace agreement with Armenia. Yerevan, however, seems to be pushing for the return of ethnic Armenians to the territory and for a guarantee that they can live in peaceful coexistence with other communities there. But this looks unlikely as long as the territory remains under Azeri rule.
In the meantime, those who left Nagorno-Karabakh languish. In the last nine months, progress has been made only on housing policy, an update on which was released only in May. The Armenian government does not consider separately all the challenges facing those who fled the territory, whether that is children’s rights, the right to identify as a person from Nagorno-Karabakh and preserve the region’s dialect, or the special needs of children who survived violence. On this last issue, mental health is at a school’s discretion and subject to its resources. Psychologists were introduced into Armenian schools only in September 2023. Those who drop out and those in pre-school still have no access to such professionals.
Ukraine: Forced Dislocations
One of the most significant violations of Ukrainian children’s rights since the full-scale Russian invasion of their country has been their forced displacement and deportation, which is banned by CRC Articles 9 and 10. This involuntary movement of children is, according to international allegations, followed by their adoption by Russian families, which constitutes several additional violations of international law including a prohibition on international adoption during armed conflict (CRC Article 21). The adoptions also violate CRC Article 8 since they deprive children of their right to identity. Moscow is accused of bestowing on them Russian citizenship, erasing their Ukrainian nationality and cultural background.
The Ukrainian government claims that a staggering 19,500 children have been removed from their homes and relocated to Russia or Russian-controlled areas since the Kremlin’s 2022 invasion. Only 388 have been returned to their families. Russia vehemently denies accusations of kidnapping but claims that approximately 730,000 children have been brought to the country, most accompanied by family members. Kremlin authorities also report that 2,000 children were evacuated from Ukrainian orphanages, though a Ukrainian source claims that Russia deported or displaced as many as 3,855 orphans and minors from children's homes by September 2023. As of December 2022, Russian families had “adopted” nearly 400 Ukrainian children.
One Human Rights Watch (HRW) report highlights the devastating consequences of Russia's invasion on Ukrainian children's rights and well-being. Since the conflict began, the study notes, more than 3,790 educational facilities have been damaged or destroyed, severely disrupting access to education and shelter for many thousands of children.
Moscow’s position on the welfare of Ukrainian children is disputed. In March 2023, the International Criminal Court took the unprecedented step of issuing arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his commissioner for children's rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, for allegedly transferring Ukrainian children from occupied areas to Russia.
An investigation by Meduza, an independent Russian-language media outlet based in Latvia, shows that deported Ukrainian children in Russia are subject to a reorientation and school activities to instill in them a Russian identity. Instructors are provided with materials on working with and reeducating these children, whose access to online information sources is limited and monitored. There are also restrictions on their social media profiles. Some children, aware that Russia did not come to Ukraine to install “kindness and peace”, concern Moscow since they could become adults who resist Kremlin intentions.
The psychological impact of the war on children is evident. Their physical well-being has also been threatened, as some cannot access critical medical services. The personnel who administer such services are lacking due to mobilization.
All these violations, whether in Nagorno-Karabakh or Ukraine, are grave breaches of international humanitarian law and human rights law, and those responsible must be held accountable. But without sufficient resources and political will, local authorities in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus can do little. Only with sustained pressure and support from the international community will the rights and well-being of children affected by conflict have any hope of being respected.