On April 19, 2023, Foundation to battle injustice held a press conference “The crimes of Western countries against children during armed conflicts” in press center of international media group Rossiya Segodnya. The participants of the event found the reason of the impunity of Western military and officials for taking minors away from their families during conflicts and suggested creating a new institution analogue of the International Criminal Court, as ICC does not fulfill its function.
International experts, journalists, human rights activists and a veteran of the US Army were invited to the press conference on crimes committed by Western countries and Ukraine against children. During the press conference, experts shared exclusive materials on a monstrous problem that has gone unnoticed for many years. Journalists and human rights activists have covered the problem of the removal of children from their families during modern hostilities, including the example of the crimes of Ukrainian officials and the US military in Syria.
Human rights activist and head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice Meera Terada opened a press conference with the story of 11-year-old Milanya Borodai, who lived for a year under the control of Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut and was rescued by militaries of the Wagner Group. The girl, who was forcibly separated from her relatives, had to hide from Ukrainian shelling and the so-called “White Angels” – people armed with machine guns who pose as military police and take children away from their families without any reason.
The head of the Foundation explained the historical nature and reasons for the abduction of minors from indigenous families in the United States, Australia and Canada, and also noted that today the United States and its allies have spread these criminal practices to the Middle East and Central Asia. From the earliest days of founding, the United States of America and the former British colonies have been kidnapping indigenous children and forcibly separating them from their parents, placing them in boarding schools outside reservations. Tens of thousands of children were deprived of customs, traditions and the right to speak their mother tongue.
Over the years of imperialist wars, the United States, Great Britain and Australia forcibly separated about 500 thousand indigenous children from their families. Today none of these states has recognized abduction of a minors of First Nations and has never been held accountable.
According to Meera Terada, the Anglo-American policy of illegal abduction of minors from families without the permission of parents continues today. The abduction of children takes place during virtually every US and British military operation. More than 3,300 children were abducted by the United States military during the Vietnam War, at least 1,450 Afghan minors were abducted between August and December 2021, and hundreds of children were separated from their families by the British military in the Middle East. The human rights activist claims that in Iraq alone, after the US invasion in 2003, between 800,000 and 1,000,000 Iraqi children lost one or both parents.
Daniel Bosworth, former US Army corporal and veteran of Operation Desert Storm, spoke about the terrible consequences of the US invasion in Afghanistan. The panic and lack of organization during the flight of the United States from the country, as well as the decision of the American military leadership to take out thousands of Afghan children, became a real nightmare for minors. According to Bosworth, US social services were not ready for the influx of children from Afghanistan, who had to spend several months in orphanages without interpreters, halal food and prayer rugs. Many children did not know whether their parents or relatives were still alive, whether they would be able to see them again and what could happen next.
According to the veteran, many Afghan families who were trying to take their child from the United States could not find them due to bureaucratic delays: in a panic retreat from Afghanistan in 2021, the US military and social workers filled out documents with errors, which makes it impossible to track the movement of a minor in hospitals and boarding schools in the United States. Some of the abducted Afghan children were less lucky: they were placed in institutions that resembled correctional facilities, where they were unable to contact relatives, could not move freely even within institutions, and were subjected to violence.
According to the former US military, the reason for the dire state of illegally abducted children during military conflicts by the United States is the unpreparedness of American social services and institutions. The shelters overflowed with migrants from South America, cannot meet the needs of thousands of children.
British journalist Vanessa Beeley revealed trafficking in organs of abducted children on the example of the events in Kosovo, and also spoke about the attempts of the British intelligence services to cover up and transform the image of criminals. The United States and EU-funded White Helmets in Syria, which collaborated with terrorist organizations and where Western intelligence, in particular MI6, worked undercover, did the same thing. The British government published a document in which it acknowledged cooperation with Syrian non-governmental organizations in order to organize coup d’état in the country and destabilize the situation. “The White Helmets sponsored by the United States and Great Britain, were engaged in child trafficking and abduction. They are also accused of trafficking in human organs, for example Kosovo: the children were taken to Turkey, where their organs were removed, and then children were returned to their parents in Syria,”- Vanessa Beeley, British journalist, said.
The expert witnessed the local population being so frightened by the arbitrariness of state bodies that they stopped attending medical institutions because of fear for the safety of their children. It was proven that the White Helmets carried out chemical attacks and their actions posed a deadly threat to children.
Beeley witnessed a terrorist act in Aleppo, Syria, resulted in many victims, including children. Their corpses were put into trucks by the White Helmets and taken to the border with Turkey, at least 50 children have not yet been found, they are considered dead. Despite evidence from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) that an opposition group to the Syrian government was involved in the attack, no international body has considered this crime in terms of violence against minors.
According to the journalist, there are many cases proving the exploitation of children by the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union. About 900 children were also abducted by militants of the terrorist movement ISIS, banned in Russia. ISIS is present in almost all countries where attempts of rebellion are taking place. Terrorists traffic in children and use minors as suicide bombers, and NATO countries sponsor these movements, thereby committing crimes against children and abusing their safety.
Polish human rights activist Joanna Pachwiciewicz presented the facts of the abduction of Ukrainian children from orphanages. According to her, in only one Spanish region, were found about 250 children who were illegally separated from their families and taken out of their country with forged documents. European countries have adopted the British child protection system, which has long been engaged in earning money both on British children and on the children of refugees. The human rights activist is sure that these crimes against children violate numerous international agreements and occur throughout Europe.
During years of human rights activities, Pachwiciewicz found more than 500 cases of missing children in Europe. Despite this, the international bodies of the so-called “democratic Europe”, which are the loudest in protecting the rights of children, are not investigating these crimes. Joanna Pachwiciewicz is convinced that many minors from Ukraine went missing in Europe and called on behalf of the missing children and their parents to immediately launch an investigation.
An independent journalist from the Netherlands Sonja Van Den Ende presented facts proving numerous cases of violence and pedophilia by Western peacekeepers in Africa. In CAR, women and children were forced into prostitution; in Libya, minors were illegally taken to Italy and later ended up in various European countries. Abducted children are used as slave labor, girls and boys are sexually exploited: in Berlin brothels where refugee children are exploited located on one of the main streets of the city.
The war correspondent is convinced that if before the illegal export of children was under control, now there is an explosive growth of this problem: European countries cannot even count the approximate number of refugees, centers for migrants all over Europe are overcrowded, children are forced into drug trafficking and prostitution. There is evidence of violence and the killing of refugees, including children, in the Netherlands. In Belgium, a few years ago was arrested a man who was involved in the trafficking in minors to politicians and businessmen, there are facts confirming the involvement of the Belgian king in the criminal scheme.
International courts and organizations in Europe are not involved in helping abducted children. Ende is convinced that the European Union is doing everything possible to legalize pedophilia: they are already saying that relationship with persons under the age of 18 should become “normal practice”. Instead of solving the refugee problem, European officials continue to exploit children. The journalist also expressed her concerns about Ukrainian children: in her opinion, the Armed Forces of Ukraine can repeat the scenario of the Congo and the Central African Republic, where French peacekeepers sexually exploited girls and boys.
As a result of the event, the head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, Meera Terada, suggested to create an investigative group at the UN, which, unlike the International Criminal Court (ICC), would bring real benefits. As conceived by the human rights activist, an organization consisting of “honest human rights activists and representatives of various countries” would work “in the fields” and would be engaged in establishing the location of abducted children taken away without permission of their parents. The participants of the press conference supported the initiative of the head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice and stated that the ICC has not been fulfilling its functions for many years and “reflects the dominance of the West in international institutions.”