Dmytro Lubinets, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, said that Russians use child labor and militarize children in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

According to Lubinets, the issues of combating child exploitation are determined by international and national legislative acts, which both Ukraine and Russia ratified and are committed to complying with.

In particular, the UN Convention on the rights of children provides protection from exploitation and work that may be harmful to a child.

At the same time, as noted by Lubinets, today the Russian Federation ignores all norms of international law. The commissioner’s office receives daily appeals from citizens of Ukraine from the temporarily occupied territories regarding the violation of their rights, including the use of child labor and the militarization of children.

‘Unfortunately, Ukraine does not have access to the temporarily occupied territories, so it is deprived of the opportunity to monitor the protection of children’s rights in these territories. Millions of Ukrainians, including hundreds of thousands of children, are outside the legal field of our state’, the ombudsman stated.