“For every nation, children are its wealth”. Oleksandra Matviychuk at the Warsaw Security Forum
On 29-30 September, the annual Warsaw Security Forum was held in Warsaw, Poland. This platform fosters dialogue among representatives of governments, international organizations, non-governmental entities, and experts in industry, think tanks, politics, defense, transatlantic cooperation, and security. This year, Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Center for Civil Liberties, was among the distinguished speakers.
In addition to her address at the forum, on 29 September, Ms. Matviichuk spoke at the Ukrainian House in Warsaw about the significance of protecting human rights for Ukrainians today, what human rights violations are being committed by Russia, what instruments can be used to counter them, and how faith in human rights can still be heard despite populism and disinformation.
On the morning of 30 September, Ms. Matviichuk was invited to a special breakfast event, “Women in International Security,” organized by Professor Katarzyna Pisarska, chair of the Warsaw Security Forum, and Ms. Veronika Folz, Senior Director for International Policy at Northrop Grumman. The discussion brought together accomplished women, including Salome Zourabichvili, the fifth President of Georgia, and Lieutenant Colonel Dana Humaid Al Marzouki, Director General of the Bureau of International Affairs at the UAE Ministry of Interior. They addressed lessons learned from Ukraine and Georgia’s experiences in resisting authoritarian pressures, the role of civil activism, local leadership, and citizen engagement in defending democratic sovereignty under challenging conditions, and the forms of international support—political, economic, or security—that are most critical for vulnerable democracies.
On 30 September, Oleksandra Matviichuk was a speaker at the panel discussion titled “Unyielding: The Fight for Democratic Sovereignty in a Hostile Neighborhood.” She was joined by President of the Republic of Kosovo Vjosa Osmani, Head of the United Transitional Cabinet of Belarus Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, and Mayor of Warsaw Rafał Trzaskowski. The session was moderated by Daniel Sachs, Deputy Chairman of the Board, Open Society Foundations, Germany.
“For every nation, its children are its wealth. Thus, if you seek to destroy a nation’s future, you steal its children. And this is precisely what the Russians are doing. 20,000 Ukrainian children have been illegally deported and placed in Russian re-education camps. They are told they are not Ukrainians but Russians, that their families and parents have abandoned them. They are informed they will be adopted by Russian families and raised as Russians. The tragedy is that among these 20,000 are children from orphanages or those whose parents were killed by Russians, yet whose relatives and families still long to bring them home.
There are also children whose parents have been arrested by Russians—these children are slated for adoption as well. Russian legislation grants adoptive families the right to change a child’s name, date, and place of birth. This means that when parents are finally released, if we’re talking about a young child, say two or three years old, they will have little chance of finding them in Russia,” the human rights defender emphasized.
