Ukrainian Refugee Crisis: Concerns about human traffickers targeting Ukrainian refugees are growing

In Poland, a man was arrested on suspicion of raping a 19-year-old Ukrainian immigrant who he had enticed with offers of sanctuary after fleeing war-torn Ukraine. Before officials interfered, another was overheard proposing work and a place to a 16-year-old girl. Another incident occurred inside a refugee camp near Poland’s Medyka border, where a guy offered assistance only to women and children, raising concerns. He changed his story when confronted by cops.

Concerns are developing to safeguard Ukrainian

Concerns are developing about how to safeguard the most vulnerable migrants (Ukrainian) from being targeted by human traffickers or becoming victims of other sorts of exploitation as millions of women and children escape over Ukraine’s borders in the face of Russian aggression. “Obviously, all of the migrants are women and children,” said UNHCR head of global communications Joung-ah Ghedini-Williams, who has visited the frontiers of Romania, Poland, and Moldova.

“You have to be concerned about the possibility of human trafficking, as well as exploitation, sexual exploitation, and abuse.” “These are the kinds of situations that people like human traffickers aim to exploit,” she explained. More than 2.5 million  Ukrainian people, including more than a million children, have already fled war-torn Ukraine, according to the UN refugee agency, in what has become Europe’s worst humanitarian disaster since World War II.

Private people and volunteers have been greeting and assisting those whose lives have been devastated by conflict in countries across Europe, including the border nations of Romania, Poland, Hungary, Moldova, and Slovakia. Help isn’t far away, from free shelter to free transportation to career possibilities and other sorts of support.

Ukrainian immigrants are facing a serious threat

Police in Wroclaw, Poland, said Thursday that they had arrested a 49-year-old man on rape charges after he reportedly assaulted a 19-year-old Ukrainian immigrant whom he had enticed with online offers of assistance. Authorities said the man faces up to 12 years in prison for the “brutal act.”

“He met the Ukrainian girl through an electronic portal, offering his assistance,” police said in a statement. “She was fleeing war-torn Ukraine and didn’t know Polish.” She had faith in a man who had offered to assist and shelter her. All of this, unfortunately, turned out to be deceptive manipulation.” In a post on social media in Ukrainian and Russia, Berlin police warned women and children against accepting offers of overnight stays and urged them to report anything suspicious.

Such a quick, widespread movement of individuals, according to Tamara Barnett, director of operations at the Human Trafficking Foundation, a UK-based organization that developed out of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking, might be a “recipe for disaster.”

“It’s sort of a breeding ground for exploitative situations and sexual exploitation when you suddenly have a massive cohort of extremely vulnerable people who need money and assistance right now,” she added. When I saw all these people volunteering their homes, it made me nervous.”

Humanitarian crises, such as those connected with conflicts, “may intensify pre-existing trafficking trends and give rise to new ones,” according to the Migration Data Portal, and traffickers can profit from “families and communities’ inability to protect themselves and their children.”

Plain-clothed intelligence personnel was on the watch for criminal elements in Romania and Poland, according to security officials. Authorities in the Romanian border town of Siret claimed individuals who offered free rides to women had been deported.

Human trafficking is a serious violation of human rights that can include a variety of exploitative jobs. It is commonly caused by traffickers by compulsion and abuse of power, ranging from sexual exploitation such as prostitution to forced labor, domestic slavery to organ removal, and forced criminality. The European Commission, the EU’s executive department, estimates that the yearly global profit from people trafficking is 29.4 billion euros in a 2020 report (USD 32 billion).

According to the report, sexual exploitation is the most widespread type of human trafficking in the 27-nation bloc, with women accounting for nearly three-quarters of all victims and children accounting for nearly one-fourth of all victims.

Madalina Mocan, committee director at ProTECT, a network of 21 anti-trafficking organizations, said there are already alarming signals, with some migrants being offered shelter in exchange for services like cleaning and childcare, which might lead to exploitation.

“There will be attempts by traffickers to enter the border with victims from Ukraine.” ” Ukrainian Women and children are particularly vulnerable, especially those who lack links to family, friends, and other support networks,” she said, adding that as the violence continues, “more and more vulnerable people” will cross the border.

Kneziva, who aims to make it to Slovakia’s capital of Bratislava with her companion, said, “When you compare… you just choose what will be less dangerous.” “When you’re in a rush, you don’t think about anything else.” Many of the migrants arriving in border countries want to go to friends or relatives in other parts of Europe, and many are relying on strangers to get them there. “People fleeing Ukraine are experiencing mental stress, trauma, dread, and disorientation,” said Cristina Minculescu, a psychologist with Next Steps Romania who helps victims of human trafficking.

At the Siret border, Suceava County Chief Officers Commissioner Ionut Epureanu told the Associated Press that police are collaborating with the country’s national agency against human trafficking and other law enforcement to try to prevent crimes.

He explained, “We’re trying to make a control for every vehicle exiting the area.” “A hundred people making transportation have good intentions, but it only takes one who doesn’t to cause disaster.” Vlad Gheorghe, a Romanian member of the European Parliament who founded the United for Ukraine Facebook group, which now has over 250,000 members and pools resources to help migrants, including housing, says he is working closely with authorities to prevent abuses.

Seven former soldiers of the French Foreign Legion, an elite military organization, are voluntarily giving their own security to migrants at the Medyka border in Poland, and are on the lookout for human traffickers.

“We discovered three men trying to lure a lot of women into a vehicle this morning,” claimed one of the former legionnaires, a South African named Mornay who only revealed his first name. “I can’t say they were trying to recruit them for sex trafficking, but they were nervous and left right away when we started talking to them and approached them.” “All we want to do is get women and children to safety,” he said. 

People were giving help at Pypypenko’s tent on the Siret border, but she wasn’t sure who she could trust. “People just come in and tell us they can transport us to France for free,” she explained. “We’ve been here for three hours today, and we’ve had two or three similar propositions.” I couldn’t conceive such a situation when such a major tragedy could be used as a crime scene.” 

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