Media contact:
Chelsea Hedquist
press@lantosfoundation.org
October 16, 2025, New York – Last week a group of five human rights organizations submitted the case of 20,000 abducted Ukrainian children to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UWGAD). The submission requests that the UNWGAD officially recognizes these children as arbitrarily detained by Russia and demands their immediate return. The submitting organizations include the Foley Foundation, Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, Human Rights Foundation, Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, and McCain Institute.
One of the cruelest casualties of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine has been the forcible abduction, deportation, and modern-day version of Russification of Ukrainian children. Russia has systematically deported Ukrainian children to a series of camps, orphanages, re-education facilities, and foster families – often under the pretext of humanitarian evacuations or rehabilitation. In reality, these children are condemned to a kind of prison.
The impacted children range from infants to 17-year-olds, all of whom have no means to escape their captivity, no authentic travel documents or proof of their true identity, and no ability to care for themselves. There are deeply concerning reports of these children being militarized, meaning that the children abducted from Ukraine may one day be forced to fight for Russia in its campaign of aggression against their home country. Moreover, many believe the official estimate of 20,000 Ukrainian children forcibly taken to Russia and other Russia-occupied areas could be significantly lower than the actual total.
Despite pressure from the international community and numerous findings of violations of international law and standards, Russia has refused to return these children to their families. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant in 2023 for Russian President Vladimir Putin based on the war crime of illegally deporting Ukrainian children. Yet, these children have not been legally defined as arbitrarily detained and therefore do not have the legal standing that comes with such a designation.
The UNWGAD has a mandate to investigate cases of arbitrary detention and, thus, the authority to inquire into the deportation of Ukrainian children and to take action to secure their safe and immediate release.
“The facts are clear: thousands of Ukrainian children have been torn from their homes and families against their will by Russian actors. No matter how the Putin regime tries to justify these abductions and illegal detentions, they flout international human rights and humanitarian law in egregious ways,” said Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett, President of the Lantos Foundation. “We acknowledge that this is an extraordinary request – to name a class of 20,000 children as arbitrarily detained – but this is an extraordinary circumstance. It is time to acknowledge that these children are, indeed, arbitrarily detained and to exert more pressure on Russia to return them. It is reprehensible for children to be used as pawns in this conflict, and these tactics must come to an end.”
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