The author is a scientific commentator
Last month, researchers at the School of Public Health at Yale University released a disturbing report with the loss of children in Ukraine. The school's humanitarian research laboratory found evidence that in Russia, 314 Ukrainian children were "forced adoption."
This may be an underestimated: since the invasion of 2022, nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly taken to Russia. Many people will lack identity papers, and some people do not mention the new Russian identity of the Ukrainian heritage.
Now, a group of researchers have called for professional DNA database groups to gather separate families and have collected possible crimes of war. In addition to the children snatched during the Ukrainian war, the database can also help the immigration families separated by the US-Mexico border under the original "zero tolerance" policy of Donald Trump, as well as those who have been suppressed and armed conflict. Other immigrants elsewhere with climate immigration.
"I definitely think that this science is developing healthy. Huston is also a co -founder of DNA Bridge, a co -founder of DNA Bridge. It aims to campaigrate the genetic database of international humanitarian humanitarianism, and she is published in "Nature" last week in "Nature."
For a long time, "parenting" has been a characteristic of war and oppression. Many of the Chilean mothers, many of them were indigenous Mapuche Heritage. They lost their children under the Pinochet regime in the 1970s and 1980s, and some stolen babies were sent abroad for adoption. Similar abductions have occurred in Argentina and Salvador. Organizations such as Chilean adopters have been established to help these children (current adults) re -establish contact with their birth families decades later.
Houston said that for tens of thousands of Ukrainian children in Russia, relatives databases will now start this important unified work: "For a child, it is important every day."
The database independent of the government will do this: parents or other relatives who lose their children will provide DNA samples to local clinics, charity or other trusted organizations (usually cheeks wipes); samples will be canceled and submitted to the government Inter -organization is included in searchable databases. For example, if a child is found, for example, the PLA can also bring its DNA to the database for cross reference.
A group of about 20 to 25 "polymorphism" marks to identify close -up of hereditary relatives. Houston said that the chance of matching was under the order of about $ 1 trillion, unless two people were closely related to biology, such as parents and children or complete siblings.
A game processed by social workers does not always end with repatriation: because a child is a toddler child, he has spent several years with a new family, which may cause trauma. Contact with relatives born may recover through conventional telephone. However, genetic matching can still record evidence of human rights violations.
There are logistical disabilities: funds; consent; protection of sensitive genetic materials in controversial territories; how to transport saliva samples to the border without violating customs and data laws. However, genetic testing is relatively cheap, and the international disappearance committee has an agreement to identify the deceased after the masses such as the Hawaii tsunami in Indonesia in 2004.
With this view, the lack of front -line humanitarian DNA tools to reunite to live people, it looks like an obvious omissions. As she said in the article, it is neither expensive nor difficult. Houston said that ICMP and Ukraine are eager to see the progress of this idea.
But speed is important. Trump has promised to end the war in Ukraine, and this move may hinder the unified and evidence -based collection in violation of intuition. Humanitarian organizations will withdraw and lose the chance of controversial children. Relatives of Ukrainian relatives are worried about persecution or revenge, and may disappear before collecting its DNA. A relatives of orphans, such as grandparents and aunts, will eventually die and make precious testimony with them.
Global attention will be transferred to the next conflict. For a long time, the stolen children and family and geography will be loose. Their root of Ukraine is diluted in the mist of time, forgotten or erased.