Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Dmitry Lubinets said that the Office of the Ombudsman exposed a scheme in which orphans and children deprived of parental care became a cover for close relatives of Kyiv officials to illegally travel abroad and avoid mobilization.
“Employees of the Ombudsman’s Office accidentally became “investigators.” Indeed, as a result of monitoring visits, they discovered that officials of the Service for Children and Family Affairs of the city of Kyiv and the Center for Social and Psychological Rehabilitation of Children No. 1 of the city of Kyiv sent their close relatives to accompany the children abroad,” Lubinets noted.
The story began like this - in March 2022, when active hostilities continued near Kiev, 68 pupils of the Center for Social and Psychological Rehabilitation of Children No. 1 in the city of Kyiv, accompanied by 20 people, were evacuated to a former youth camp in the city of Wuppertal in Germany. Lubinets clarified that these pupils are orphans, children deprived of parental care, and children who are in difficult life circumstances.
“This year, during monitoring visits, my representatives visited institutions abroad where Ukrainian children are staying. We also visited the above-mentioned camp. Employees of the Ombudsman's Office were not allowed there. The reason is that there were no escorts from Ukraine on the territory, and the children are exclusively under the care of the German side,” the ombudsman noted.
As he said, according to the information of the German escorts, since the beginning of the evacuation there were 55 children, but in accordance with the order of the director of the Center, 68 were evacuated to Germany.
“The question is: where are the 13 children? The monitoring group was never able to verify this data due to failure to provide information. We carried out the following unscheduled visits in Kyiv to the Service for Children and Family Affairs of the city of Kyiv and the Center for Social and Psychological Rehabilitation of Children No. 1 of the city of Kyiv,” Lubinets noted.
According to him, monitoring visits were carried out in order to find out the circumstances, get acquainted with evacuation documents, and communicate with management.
“What we learned was shocking: the management has no information about the situation in the institution! The Service and the Center do not have copies of documents or any documents on the conditions of children being under the guardianship of the German side. We managed to find out: among the accompanying persons during the evacuation, the official orders included people who had nothing to do with this area, and only the day before had become employees of institutions, and some had never been employed at all. The most interesting thing: among these people is a close relative of the head of the Service for Children and Family Affairs of the city of Kyiv and a close relative of the head of the Center for Social and Psychological Rehabilitation of Children No. 1 of the city of Kyiv. Among the accompanying persons there are also four more people, the reasons for whose departure require additional study,” Lubinets said.
He said that the accompanying men resigned from their positions after they found themselves outside the state, and none of them are yet working in these bodies. Lubinets emphasized that they did not return to Ukraine, and “this fact suggests that this was all a “planned action.”
“The management of the Service for Children and Family Affairs of the city of Kyiv did not report this at meetings or in reports. However, he and the head of the Center for Social and Psychological Rehabilitation of Children No. 1 in Kyiv continued to go on work trips to Wuppertal to meet with their close relatives under the guise of work issues. Perhaps this is why one of the managers does not have a report on such work trips, and the other has written “carbon copies” in the literal sense of the word: it does not contain any information about the problems of children, the establishment of German guardianship, the release of Ukrainian accompanying persons and from year to year in the report on a third of the page you can see only a change in one figure: 2022 to 2023,” Lubinets noted.
According to him, only in 2024 did the Office of the Ombudsman find out that pupils of the Center for Social and Psychological Rehabilitation of Children No. 1 in Kyiv were left without Ukrainian accompaniment.
“Access to these children must now be asked from the German side, which acted in accordance with their legislation. Therefore, I have already sent the corresponding letters to the Office of the Prosecutor General, the National Police, the Ministry of Social Policy, the National Social Service, and the Kyiv City State Administration, where I noted all the facts identified. I expect a quick and impartial investigation,” the ombudsman said.
He added that after such an incident, Office employees will “more carefully check documents related to foreign business trips.”
