The eight Slovak lawmakers who voted against the resolution on Ukrainian children

Slovak lawmakers did not adopt a resolution on the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and the call for their immediate return to Ukraine.

The resolution was put forward by four MPs of the liberal opposition party Freedom and Solidarity (SaS). By adopting the resolution, Slovakia would have joined the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children, which consists of 33 countries striving to return Ukrainian children forcibly deported to Russia to their biological families.

Sas MP Vladimíra Marcinková said that she feels ashamed to be part of a parliament where MPs are incapable of setting aside "political jerseys" on such a sensitive issue as the abduction of children. She added that she is also horrified that eight lawmakers decided to vote against the effort to locate deported children.

"The government refuses to join in and help," she summed up.

The proponents of the resolution emphasised that the forced deportations of Ukrainian children to Russia are against international law and constitute a serious violation of children's rights. Since the beginning of the Russian military offensive in February 2022, 20,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly transferred to Russia, but Ukrainian data suggest that the number of these children is several times higher, reaching into the hundreds of thousands, according to the resolution.

"The children are being Russified, forcibly adopted into Russian families, and their parents have no information about them," Marcinková said, adding that these children become victims of various forms of violence, including sexual abuse.

In the resolution, four SaS MPs also slammed the ruling coalition for deciding not to condemn the use of North Korean missiles by Russia against Ukraine in January 2024.