"You had to disappear": How the occupiers force teachers to work according to Russian programs

Forced to work under the pressure of the occupation authorities, the need to hide their professional affiliation, physical and psychological violence due to refusal to teach in Russian - these are all things that teachers are exposed to.

"If you didn't want to work for the occupiers in the newly opened school, you had to disappear," says Tatiana, a teacher from Kherson, which was under Russian military occupation from March to November 2022.

To the people who came to her city to kill, torture, destroy, burn Ukrainian books and textbooks, and then reopen schools to indoctrinate children (forcing people to act and think according to a certain ideology), she could not simply say: "No, I will not teach children according to the Russian curriculum". Such an answer was not accepted either in Kherson or in other temporarily occupied territories.

Thus, in one of the small towns of the Zaporozhye region, Aleksandar, a school director and geography teacher, said "no" to the occupiers. Everyone in town knew him. The head of the occupation administration told him back in April 2022 that "if the principals agree to work in the newly opened school, all their teachers will follow them."

Aleksandar was pressured to call a meeting at his school. Teachers were promised high salaries and the provision of teaching materials.

Aleksandar refused to work, said he had health problems, and the head of the occupation administration started visiting him regularly. The latter demanded that the director hand over the personal files of the school's teaching staff.

"I was afraid of the sound of every car driving down my street," Aleksandar said.

He told the occupiers that he had burned his personal files at the beginning of the invasion. All. Just in case.

However, the story did not end there.  

"Soon after I refused to cooperate, four armed men came to my house. Two of them dragged me to the car. They hit me several times with guns. The other two stayed with their husbands. They took me to the school yard and called me "fascist" and "Nazi" again, they asked me to come to the event and thus "support" the functioning of the school by posing for pictures with Russian state symbols about my cooperation and support for the occupation. They threatened that these photos would be enough for the Ukrainian authorities to prove my support for the occupation and to imprison me," says Aleksandar.

On the morning when all this was happening, the kidnappers called Alexander and reminded him of the event he was forced to attend. He was forced to continue coming to the school for events, which he describes as "pure propaganda". Until Alexander left the occupied city. Now Russian soldiers live in his house.

There are many such stories. We only know some of them. Amnesty International conducted interviews with 27 school teachers and principals from Kharkiv Oblast, Zaporizhia, Nikolaev Oblast and Kherson Oblast. Everyone told us about their experiences - theirs, colleagues - during the period of Russian occupation.

The occupying Russian authorities tried everywhere to re-open schools for teaching according to the Russian curriculum, trying to include as much as possible the teachers who worked in the school before the occupation. Teachers everywhere were forced to do so by intimidation, threats of brutal retaliation, some of which were carried out. Everyone we managed to talk to refused to "cooperate" and had to go to the territories under the control of the Ukrainian authorities.

In these stories, first of all, obvious violations can be seen. After all, it is clear to all of us (although, of course, not the Russians) that you cannot intimidate people, threaten them, blackmail them, kidnap them, beat them...

But there is another, less obvious side to this story. This is forced labor.

The testimonies of the victims convincingly show us that the teachers were forced to return to work against their will. Therefore, article 6 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the Convention of the International Labor Organization (ILO) on forced labor were probably violated.

The occupying forces tried to force teachers to work under the threat of severe punishments, including extrajudicial killings, without any voluntary consent. People were forced to work because they were intimidated, scared. People were deprived of their basic rights and freedoms.

Some lawyers will note, however, that the law is unemotional. That all of this is, of course, extremely unfortunate - but the occupying forces, according to international law, can force civilians to work to meet the critical needs of the local population. However, when it comes to teachers who are beaten with machine guns and taken to school to forcibly "force" children into the indoctrination system... The argument about critical needs does not really stand up to any criticism.

The situation with teachers in the occupied territories was and, unfortunately, remains a clear example of forced labor, followed, without a doubt, by other human rights violations and crimes - in each individual case.

And it is incredibly important that all these violations are thoroughly documented and investigated - both by national authorities and international structures. All those responsible must answer for their actions.

 

Because impunity kills. We've known that for a long time. We learn this again and again - with every step of the occupiers on our land, which they have been walking on for more than 10 years. To which they came after the occupation of other countries, for whose crimes, unfortunately, they were not responsible.