BY FR. SHAY CULLEN
THERE is a moral obligation for all people who claim to be people with moral values, humanitarian commitments or even be Christian: to stand for justice and truth and against evil and violence. Today everyone is challenged to stand for children’s rights and to protect the rights and dignity of every human being. They who fail to protect their rights will surely lose them.
When we are confronted with the evidence of evil, the violation of the right to life and the well-being of hundreds of thousands of children, we must act to stop evil. The more silent we stay, the worse it gets. There is a silence that is that of consent and even gives approval by doing nothing, saying nothing and allowing crimes to be committed with impunity. Child sexual abuse, abduction, trafficking, and extra-judicial killings, all are heinous crimes against humanity.
The dictator with the killer instinct gets so powerful no one can stop him. He creates a protective ring of protectors around him so he can commit violence with impunity and the maniac tendencies cause untold and unspeakable crimes.
We have to tell the untold, speak the unspeakable and challenge evil by doing good and striving to make this a better world. We strive to live lives that bring goodness and truth and justice to victims of abuse and violence. Yes, we have to speak the unspeakable.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was a shock and a disaster to the world as it unleashed a horrific war where civilians were bombed in their homes, shot dead on the streets by death squads and others starved to death.
Perhaps the most evil of the many war crimes committed by Russian troops and Vladimir Putin is the forced abduction and deportation of thousands of children from Ukraine to Russia. These are children separated from their parents and grandparents. Some are orphans caused by the Russian bombing atrocities that killed their parents in their homes and they, the children, are victims taken like the spoils and booty of war. They are being captured and taken in mass deportation to the land of the enemy.
This is a war crime and the International Criminal Court has made a judgment saying so and issued an arrest warrant for the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, whereby he could and should be arrested in any country he travels to. As many as 16,221 children were ordered to be deported to Russia, according to Ukrainian officials. These forced deportations “violate international humanitarian law and amount to a war crime,” says the UN Commission that is investigating the mass deportations.
To lose your home, parents, friends, schoolmates and relatives and be taken to a foreign country is a severe traumatic event for a child. They are deprived of the love, care and security provided by loving parents. It is a shocking trauma for a child causing pain and hurt and longing that lasts a lifetime. They are taken away, not knowing if they will live or die.
An investigation by the United Nations shows that not only are the children abducted against their will but they force the children to accept Russian citizenship. They are making the children their property and exercising total power and authority over them so their parents or the Ukraine state cannot rescue them and take them back. (To be continued)/PN
