Kidnapping NOT deportation

Ukrainian children cannot simply be described as "deported" as the term is used in common parlance and international law. 

From the perspective of international law, the term "deportation" refers to the forced transfer of civilians from the territory where they reside to the territory of another country.  Individual or mass deportations are prohibited by Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. 

Of course, Russia has indeed violated this prohibition in relation to Ukrainian children, but this term does not cover the full scope of the international crime, both legally and factually.

These children were not merely transferred from one territory to another; they were forcibly removed from their parents and/or legal guardians in their home country (who were either killed or separated from them), forcibly moved to another state by government agents of that state, their identities and legal citizenship erased, and then held there against their will by new legal guardians appointed by the state.   This is more accurately described as a mass abduction.

This also violates international law - not in terms of humanitarian law, but human rights.  The United Nations Human Rights Committee has recognized on at least four occasions that the forcible abduction of a person from his or her home state to another state where he or she is subsequently deprived of liberty violates Article 9(1) of the ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, an international human rights treaty adopted in 1966).  So did the European Court of Human Rights when interpreting Article 5(1) of the European Convention.  On any view, international law clearly prohibits state-sponsored enforced disappearance across national borders.

This may also qualify as genocide.  Article 2 of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention defines genocide as any of five acts "committed with intent to destroy ... a national, ethnic, racial or religious group". The forced abduction and indoctrination of Ukrainian children likely falls under the fifth act, defined as "the forcible transfer of children of [one] group to another group."

The nomenclature of deportation and abduction is very important for the perception of the international community, whose support Ukraine desperately needs. 

For Americans and other European countries, the word "deportation" is associated with how a country deals with voluntary but illegal immigration - for example, undocumented Mexicans are routinely "deported" back to Mexico upon arrival in the United States.  Syrian or Iraqi migrants are also deported from Europe back to their country of origin for violating laws.

On the other hand, the international community does not say that Israeli citizens held in Gaza by Hamas have been "deported" there. And we have absolutely identical cases of murder, torture, and abduction of Ukrainian children, whom Russia has been keeping on its territory for almost 2 years and not releasing under various pretexts.  By applying the term deportation to the fate of abducted Ukrainian children, we risk comparing them to voluntary but illegal immigrants in Russia, rather than to what they really are - forcibly abducted prisoners of war in an illegal war subjected to a campaign of genocide.

To make this as clear as possible to the world community and to encourage the world to take immediate decisive action and facilitate the return of the children home, it is correct to refer to the Ukrainian children as "abductees".

Kind Regards,

Charles Kotuby, professor of practice and the executive director of the Center for International Legal Education at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Dr. Jason McCue, Human Rights award winning lawyer, senior partner of McCue Jury & Partners, head of Payback4Ukraine legal network

Jane Alieva, CEO of Mama Jane Foundation, director of Payback4Ukraine legal network

Tanya Mulesa, Director of NGO 'Justice and Accountability for Ukraine' (JAFUA)