Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (HL6132):
Question by Lord ALTON of Liverpool :
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of (1) the report published by the Conflict Observatory on 14 February which found that more than 6,000 Ukrainian children between the ages of four months and 17 years have been abducted by the government of Russia, held in camps and subjected to re-education, and (2) estimates by the government of Ukraine that the number of abducted children may be much higher. (HL6132)
Tabled on: 06 March 2023
Answer:
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon:
The UK is examining the findings of the Conflict Observatory report carefully. It supports growing evidence, including from the UN and OSCE, that large-scale forced transfers to Russia or within Russian-controlled territories of Ukraine are occurring and that Russia may be seeking to erase Ukrainian identity through education programmes. We have seen this before in Crimea and other Russian-controlled territories of Ukraine, where Russia imposed the Russian curriculum. The report refers only to the number of children sent to re-education camps; the number affected by forced transfers is likely much higher. Lack of access for humanitarian and monitoring organisations to Russia and Russian-controlled territory makes it difficult verify exact numbers.
Date and time of answer: 16 Mar 2023 at 17:42.
