The Cabinet of Ministers is preparing a strategy for the return of Ukrainian orphans from Europe
The state is preparing to return to the Motherland orphans and children deprived of parental care, who were evacuated abroad at the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Russia. This process involves the organized return of children from the 24-hour care facilities where they stayed during the evacuation.
As informs the press service of the Ministry of Social Policy, Deputy Minister Iryna Postolovska emphasized that the main priority in returning children is their placement in family forms of education. This will allow children to be brought up in a home environment that is most favorable for their development.
According to the Ministry, there are currently about 2,000 orphans and children deprived of parental care abroad who were evacuated as part of organized groups. They receive temporary protection in countries that provided asylum to Ukrainian children during the war.
“Ukraine is grateful to the states that provided children with temporary protection. At the same time, returning to Ukraine means for children the preservation of national identity, full access to Ukrainian education, as well as the realization of the right to education in a family environment. The security situation in regions far from the front line allows us to work on return these children”, – the Ministry of Social Policy believes.
To implement this initiative, a schedule of visits by representatives of specialized services to the countries where the evacuated children are located has already been drawn up. These countries include Switzerland, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Spain, Romania, Slovenia, Greece and Croatia. The Ministry also reported that monitoring visits have already taken place to Turkey, Italy and Poland, where the conditions of the children’s stay were assessed and negotiations were held regarding their return.
Petro Dobromilskyi, head of the State Service of Ukraine for Children, emphasized the importance of taking into account the individual needs of children during their return to Ukraine, in particular preserving family ties between brothers and sisters, because they cannot be separated.
We will remind that earlier President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Ukrainian refugees to return home.
