{"id":612854,"date":"2025-12-05T01:59:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T01:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/612854\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T01:59:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T01:59:18","slug":"childrens-rights-must-be-protected-in-any-ukraine-peace-plan-130-mps-tell-foreign-office-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/612854\/","title":{"rendered":"Children\u2019s rights must be protected in any Ukraine peace plan, 130 MPs tell Foreign Office | Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

A cross-party group of more than 130 Westminster MPs has written to ministers urging them to ensure any US-brokered peace plan for Ukraine<\/a> includes protections for forcibly deported Ukrainian children, saying the current version risks \u201cextinguishing\u201d their rights.<\/p>\n

Led by the Labour MP Johanna Baxter, the letter to Stephen Doughty, whose Foreign Office brief includes Europe<\/a>, warns that the current peace framework being touted by the Trump administration would \u201chollow out\u201d protections to children enshrined in the Geneva conventions.<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands of children in parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia have been removed<\/a> from their homes, with many taken to camps where they are indoctrinated and militarised, an effort widely seen as a war crime.<\/p>\n

In the letter to Doughty, the 132 MPs, who come from Labour, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Greens, SNP and two Northern Irish parties, note that Russia<\/a> is a signatory to the Geneva conventions, which give special protection to children during war.<\/p>\n

\u201cYet deeply disturbing reports in recent days indicate that the 28-point \u2018peace framework\u2019 for Ukraine, reportedly negotiated by the United States, makes no reference to the specific treatment of children, nor does it recognise their protected status under international humanitarian law,\u201d the letter continues, saying that the only mention of children is in connection with a wider point about returning prisoners of war or hostages.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe omission of the special protection afforded to children is not a technical oversight: it clearly forms the basis of Russia\u2019s deliberate attempt to dismantle the Ukrainian state by erasing Ukrainian identity one child at a time,\u201d the letter says.<\/p>\n

It also castigates an element of the peace plan that says all parties would receive a full amnesty for their actions in the war, which would nullify international arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia\u2019s commissioner for children\u2019s rights, who has been implicated in the forced deportation programme.<\/p>\n

The MPs add that if a peace plan involved recognising Russian sovereignty over Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk, it would bring \u201cdevastating\u201d implications for 1.6 million Ukrainian children living there.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlongside their forcible deportation of Ukrainian children, it is now well documented that Russia has also pursued a systematic policy of indoctrination, coercion, and militarisation of Ukrainian children,\u201d they say.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny settlement that legitimises occupation risks permanently extinguishing the legal protections afforded to the Ukrainian children living in these occupied territories, their national identity, and their right to return home. This would not merely undermine international law but would hollow out the fourth Geneva convention at its core.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baxter, who has campaigned on the issue of Ukraine\u2019s children, said: \u201cRussia has pursued a sustained and systematic policy of indoctrination, militarisation and forcible deportation of Ukrainian children, in what can only be described as an attempt to erase Ukraine\u2019s future one child at a time. These are war crimes for which there should be no amnesty.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is vital that the UK government works with international partners to ensure that any final peace deal upholds international humanitarian law and the special protections it affords to children and that Russia is held accountable for the war crimes that they continue to commit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Foreign Office was contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A cross-party group of more than 130 Westminster MPs has written to ministers urging them to ensure any…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-612854","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115664490546296090","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}