Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent steps her Department has taken to support UN investigations into reports of (a) forced re-education, (b) ideological indoctrination and (c) other violations of children’s rights in territories of Ukraine under Russian occupation.

We consistently raise awareness of child deportations in our communications and across multilateral fora and have raised this issue at the UN Security Council, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and the UN Human Rights Council. Most recently, we raised the issue at the UN General Assembly, as well as in UN Security Council meetings on missing persons in armed conflict on 15 May, and on the maintenance of peace and security in Ukraine on 8 April, and we also raised it at the annual open debate on children and armed conflict on 26 June 2024. In April, the UK supported the renewal of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine at the Human Rights Council.