ELVIS FOKALA: SA can use moral authority to help Africa and Ukraine’s abducted children

SA has a powerful opportunity to elevate its moral standing and authority in the international community by weighing in on an unfolding tragedy in the Russia-Ukraine war and in the process remind the world of a similar African calamity.

That tragedy is the tens of thousands of Ukrainian children who have been abducted and removed from their homeland by Russia in the course of the conflict. This humanitarian crisis has been detailed in a recently released white paper, “Safeguarding Children from Forced Transfers and Deportation”, presented by the Bring Kids Back UA Task Force. Besides describing the heartbreaking reality, it documents how these actions have been classified as war crimes and calls for action from the international community.

For SA — and particularly with the government of national unity — this issue provides a platform on which South Africans can project a reviving moral authority and drive efforts to improve the international regime when it comes to the rights of children. But it can also be a spotlight to remind the world of the thousands of African children, in, for example, northern Nigeria and Sudan who face a similar ordeal — a phenomenon that is often forgotten.

Humanitarian issues, and particularly those involving children, are powerful drivers of consensus in the international community as we have seen in the role of the SA government going to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), arguing that Israel’s actions in Gaza were “genocidal in character”. SA’s early victory in this process was, as the government said after the ruling, “a decisive victory for the international rule of law”.

The Ukrainian and Sudanese children present another opportunity for the force of international law to be felt, particularly as the ICJ has already issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and for Maria Lvova-Belova, a key Russian figure accused of involvement in the abductions.

SA’s ICJ action on Gaza, while initially divisive, appears now to have found a broader consensus both at home and elsewhere that it was morally correct even if politically expensive.

This episode also served as a reminder that post-apartheid SA has a unique role to play in the world, trading off our unlikely peaceful transition to democracy and our stature imbued with the moral authority of Nelson Mandela. Many forget, for example, the pivotal role SA and President Cyril Ramaphosa played in supporting the Northern Ireland peace process in the 1990s, or similarly pivotal roles in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and elsewhere.

So there are many good reasons for SA to pick up the cudgels in the effort to press Russia to return Ukraine’s children to their homeland and in doing so to remind the world of the often-forgotten tragedy that is also occurring in Sudan and other countries in Africa.

The Ukraine task force white paper cites estimates that “tens of thousands” of children have been illegally abducted by Russia but, sadly, children across Africa endure a similar fate in DRC, Sudan and Mozambique, with many being pressed into service as child soldiers.

Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, children in Afghanistan, DRC, the occupied Palestinian territory, Somalia, Syria and Yemen suffered the highest number of verified violations of children’s rights in conflict, according to Save the Children. For example, more than 10,000 children were abducted in Somalia in the preceding decade — about 42% of all recorded child abductions in conflict situations globally during that period.

This is an issue that should matter to the world, and a focus on the interests and rights of children is an issue that is both just and true to SA’s DNA.

SA, for example, is party to the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child, which include provisions on the rights of displaced children and those affected by armed conflict. Russia, it must be noted, is also a signatory and has been called to account for its actions in Ukraine in the context of its convention obligations.

This context, as well as SA’s position in Brics and its leading role in the broader community of nations identifying as nonaligned, provides it with a natural path to push for action that will assist the missing children of Ukraine and of those in Africa.

Some of the groundwork has been laid for this already. In June 2023, Ramaphosa and other African leaders were reported to have raised the issue bravely and directly with Putin as part of the Africa peace initiative at the time. Sadly, little more has been heard of this important first step but it cannot be difficult for SA to rise to this challenge. SA has established itself as a powerhouse both in Africa and beyond, as a country that is committed to all the treaties it has ratified, and is also committed to calling out gross human rights violations in the world. 

And that ideal should remain true whether it involves the missing children of Ukraine or those of Uganda, DRC or South Sudan.

• Fokala is an associate professor and the head of the children rights unit of the University of Pretoria law faculty’s Centre for Human Rights.