The Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine continues to cooperate with international partners in the protection of children's rights in wartime.

On May 4, 2022, the Minister of Social Policy of Ukraine Maryna Lazebna held a meeting with representatives of the NGO Save the Children International.

The organization has been operating in Ukraine since 2014, focusing on children and families with children affected by the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine.

The activities of Save the Children International in Ukraine now are mainly aimed at protecting children suffering from hostilities, providing them with comprehensive support, healthy development, and psychological assistance.

"The main objective of today is to save the life of each child," said Maryna Lazebna.

During the meeting, the parties discussed the state of affairs in the field of protection of the rights of Ukrainian children in the context of russia's full-scale war against Ukraine, their needs and ways to help.

The Minister briefed foreign partners on activities in the direction of the protection of the rights of children displaced abroad with a number of European Union member states. The Ministry and partners are currently working on the signing of bilateral memoranda in order to confirm the good intentions of the parties to protect the rights of Ukrainian children.

And in this context, it is critical to determine four main priorities:

• protection of the rights and needs of children from vulnerable categories;
• ensuring consular registration of such children;
• guarantee of the return of children to Ukraine when circumstances allow;
• prevention of adoption of Ukrainian children without the consent of Ukraine and application of national legislation on adoption.

Representatives of Save the Children International welcomed the work of the Ministry of Social Policy in this direction and expressed readiness to advocate in the relevant EU member states for the process of concluding such memoranda.

The parties also discussed opportunities for bilateral cooperation. In this context, Maryna Lazebna outlined a number of areas where joint efforts are most urgently needed now, namely:

• comprehensive support for host communities sheltering children and families with children;
• assistance to orphans in finding their relatives;
• providing psychological support to children, creating a social standard for use in institutions that provide social, educational, medical services;
• coordination of joint efforts to resolve the situation with regard to children who were evacuated to territories not controlled by Ukraine and the territory of the russian federation, categorical preventing the adoption of such children by russian citizens;
• initiating the return of children displaced to the territory of the russian federation in appeal to the United Nations as a global problem in the field of protection of children’s rights.

Representatives of Save the Children International shared their experience in crisis situations, informed about the creation of special centers for children in Ukraine, providing psychological assistance to children and families with children, providing children with basic necessities, toys, clothes, and expressed interest and comprehensive support for the activities, conducted by the Ministry, as well as new initiatives in the field of protection of the rights of Ukrainian children amid the full-scale war of russia against Ukraine.