This article discusses the practices and policies undertaken by Russia in the War in Ukraine regarding the forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia and suggests some possible meanings of these actions that purposefully make Ukrainian children vulnerable. Taking contributions from the Childhood Studies field and the lens of the justice cascade, this article raises some of the meanings and problems underlying Russia’s forcible transfer practices of Ukrainian children.
The paper consists of four sections in addition to this contextualized introduction:
(i) an attempt to read these children’s forcible transfer through an international criminal justice lens,
(ii) the mapping of policies and practices implemented by Russia towards Ukrainian children,
(iii) an understanding of the instrumentalized treatment given to these children during the war resulting in a marginalized agency of them, and
(iv) some normative considerations on the children’s resilience as both a counterforce and pathway to rearticulate their multiple traumas.
