Recently, the Human Rights Ombudsman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine commented in public on the alleged militarization of the education system in the DPR and LPR. It is difficult to comment on such statements, since they are devoid of a subject of the discussion. However, we are talking about ensuring the rights of the child, so I am obliged to highlight the key points.
First. Military educational institutions and patriotic education systems operate throughout the world. Children who enter such institutions make their choice voluntarily, together with their parents. This is a normal practice, in full compliance with all provisions of international legislation in the field of protecting the rights of the child, including the UN Convention.
At the same time, I would like to note that it is Ukraine that stands out among other states on the issue of the formation of “civic identity”. On 30 June 2021, the Cabinet of Ministers even approved a special state program of national-patriotic education.
Second. If the Ukrainian Ombudsman is really interested in the situation with the rights of the child in Donbass, it should be assessed from a different angle, namely, from the point of view of their violation by Ukrainian officials, politicians and military personnel
Children of Donbass have been discriminating in their rights by Ukraine for more than seven years. Ongoing shelling, economic, transport, food blockades, namely, these criminal actions of Kiev have led to violations of absolutely all categories of children’s rights in the region, including the inalienable rights to life and healthy development.
Let me remind you that the result of the armed aggression of Kiev only on the territory of the DPR was the death of 91 children. And it is because of the ugly Ukrainian militarism that today and without a military education, the children of Donbass know what “Grad” and mortars are, and can distinguish the explosions of shells by sound.
But for some reason, the Ukrainian Ombudsman is in no hurry to draw the attention of UNICEF and other international organizations to this issue, along with it does not take any action to protect the interests of Russian-speaking children on the territory of their own state. Moreover, with the tacit agreement of the human rights community, they were illegally deprived of the right to receive education in their mother tongue and became hostages of violent Ukrainization.
What kind of Russian propaganda can we talk about here? Ukraine itself pushed Donbass away, by making Russophobia the basis of its national ideology.
