Protection of children under occupation: the ICRC has updated its commentary on the Geneva Conventions

This was announced by Dmytro Lubinets, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights.

In 2025, the International Committee of the Red Cross updated its commentary on the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.

It specifically addresses Article 50, which concerns children in occupied territories.

This is not a change to the text of the Geneva Convention itself, but rather its contemporary legal interpretation. In other words, the ICRC has explained how these provisions should be applied in the context of current wars, occupation, deportations, mass displacement, digital risks and attempts to alter children’s identities.

How this should work

Article 50 of the Fourth Geneva Convention obliges the occupying power to facilitate the work of institutions responsible for the care and education of children.

The occupying power must also take all necessary measures to establish the identity of children and register details of their parents.

A specific prohibition concerns altering children’s personal status and their recruitment into formations or organisations controlled by the occupying power.

The updated ICRC commentary explains that a child under occupation cannot be “re-educated” to adopt the identity of the occupying power.

The occupying power has no right to conceal a child’s origins, sever ties with their family, alter their documents, impose its own citizenship, or subject the child to a propaganda system.

It is also prohibited to involve children in military or paramilitary structures.

If a child has been displaced, separated from their family or placed in an institution in the occupied territory, the occupying power cannot hide behind claims of “care”, “evacuation” or “upbringing”. It must ensure the child’s identity is established, data on their parents is preserved, and they receive proper care and education without their national identity being destroyed.

Why this is important for Ukraine

Lubinec stated that the deportation and forced displacement of Ukrainian children has been going on for 13 years.

According to him, children’s documents are being altered, Russian citizenship is being imposed on them, they are being transferred to Russian educational programmes and integrated into paramilitary structures.

The Ombudsman described such actions as a crime of genocide.

He also stated that Russia is systematically using Ukrainian children as a tool of war – through recruitment on social media, online games and messaging apps, propaganda, militarisation and the destruction of Ukrainian identity.

The Ombudsman’s position

During the presentation of the updated commentary on Article 50, Lubinets emphasised that the war is changing rapidly.

According to him, approaches to child protection must evolve alongside the war.

The Ombudsman noted that international humanitarian law and its interpretation must evolve in line with the realities of modern warfare.

He thanked the ICRC for updating the commentary, for its cooperation and for its openness to dialogue.

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