Human Rights House Foundation statement
HRC61 – Item 10 – Interactive Dialogue – Ukraine
26 March 2026
HRMMU report on “forced displacement”
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Thank you, Vice-President.
More than a decade into Russia’s occupation of Crimea, violations are entrenched. In other occupied parts of Ukraine, the same methods are spreading: fear and pressure designed to erase Ukrainian identity and force people into submission or to flee.
The latest Monitoring Mission report describes how forced displacement is not only about movement but it is also about constant pressure. People are pushed out or compelled to move by Russian “passportisation”, threats of deportation, unlawful conscription, persecution for pro-Ukrainian identity, attacks on religious communities, and the indoctrination of children.
The same report shows that return to the occupied territories is not only unsafe, it is being actively impeded. Everyone, including those who flee and those who remain, are left with a cruel choice: submit to occupation, or lose homes and livelihoods.
Our Ukrainian partners continue to document this system as well as the continued persecution of journalists, civic activists, and Crimean Tatars. We remain deeply concerned for those who remain unjustly imprisoned, including Iryna Danylovych, Emir Usein Kuku, and members of Crimean Solidarity, including Amet Suleymanov and Tofiq Abdulgaziev.
President,
We ask the Deputy High Commissioner: what more can the UN system do to document confiscated property and support remedies for Ukrainians from occupied territory who have been displaced and denied the right to return?
Thank you.
