Growing up, children deeply need the support of a father. Yet many are deprived of that presence and care. A day that is typically associated with warmth and family has taken on a tragic tone in Crimea. Too many children there mark Father\u2019s Day without their dads, because the occupying forces have unjustly imprisoned them. Politically motivated sentences, dawn raids, and armed officers in family homes leave psychological scars and tear loved ones apart. Father\u2019s Day is a painful reminder: for many children in Crimea, it was Russia that took their fathers away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mumine Salieva knows the pain in a child\u2019s eyes. Her husband, Seiran Saliiev, is serving a sixteen-year sentence imposed for his civic activism and journalism. The project Born After Arrest,<\/em> which she founded, has become a voice for children who have never held their father\u2019s hand, yet who still proudly carry the identity of those who refused to bow to the occupiers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hanifa Siruk was born five months after her father\u2019s arrest. She lives in the village of Semenne in the Nyzhnohirskyi district. Vadym Struk, a Ukrainian Muslim and Crimean Tatar activist, was detained on 11 February 2016 and later sentenced to 12 years in prison on religious grounds. He is currently held in Penal Colony No. 2 in Bashkortostan. From there, he sends his daughter drawings made with multicoloured pens on plain paper. For years, the girl had never seen her father in person. She first met him face-to-face when she was five.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Muhammad Izetov was born on 14 May 2019 in Simferopol. His father, Crimean human rights defender and lawyer Riza Izetov, was arrested just two weeks later. Before his detention, he supported political prisoners \u2014 attending so-called court hearings and providing legal advice. He is currently held in a colony, after being unlawfully sentenced to 19 years by the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don. His son has never seen him outside prison walls. Muhammad\u2019s mother says the boy has inherited his father\u2019s mind, logical and detail-oriented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amaliia Aivazova was born on 2 December 2019 in Simferopol. Her father, Crimean Solidarity activist Raim Aivazov, had been arrested earlier that year, on 17 April 2019. The Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced him to 17 years in prison. He is unlawfully held in Pre-Trial Detention Centre No. 3 in the Rostov region. Before his arrest, he was abducted and tortured by FSB officers. Raim had supported Crimean political prisoners by delivering parcels, documenting repression, and attending court hearings. His daughter has only seen him in prison during visitations \u2014 the first of which took place in September 2023. The \u201cprosecution\u201d is now demanding a life sentence in his case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, at least 242 children in Crimea are growing up without their fathers due to politically motivated criminal persecution. Twelve of them were born after their fathers\u2019 arrests. They live in difficult conditions: in towns where it is dangerous to speak openly about the circumstances of the detentions, in schools where they face discrimination. For many, home raids and courtrooms are part of their earliest childhood memories. On Father\u2019s Day, it is important not only to honour the role of fathers, but also to highlight the plight of children who are forcibly deprived of their fathers due to the Russian Federation\u2019s systemic repression of Ukrainian citizens in occupied Crimea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":73972,"template":"","publication-type":[57],"class_list":["post-74028","press-center","type-press-center","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","publication-type-special-material"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n