Tweet
Share
Share
Pin
0 Shares

Trafficking in persons, smuggling of migrants and the war in Ukraine

https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/tip-studies.html

The war in Ukraine has result­ed in mil­lions of peo­ple being dis­placed inter­nal­ly and out­side the coun­try since Feb­ru­ary 2022. This UNODC study, launched in Feb­ru­ary 2025, exam­ines the risks and inci­dence of traf­fick­ing in per­sons and smug­gling of migrants in the con­text of the dis­place­ment caused by the con­flict in Ukraine, and the impli­ca­tions for pol­i­cy and practice.

The research analy­ses the evo­lu­tion of traf­fick­ing in per­sons and smug­gling of migrants dur­ing the years 2022 to 2024, based on rel­e­vant lit­er­a­ture, sta­tis­tics, a sur­vey in 2023 of over 1,600 Ukraini­ans and non-Ukraini­ans dis­placed from Ukraine and key infor­mant inter­views in Ukraine, Ger­many, Poland and Switzerland.

The study finds that the inci­dence of smug­gling of migrants and traf­fick­ing in per­sons in the con­text of the dis­place­ment remain rel­a­tive­ly low as of the time of pub­li­ca­tion. The refugee response in Europe – main­tain­ing visa-free entry for refugees from Ukraine and facil­i­tat­ing rapid access to tem­po­rary pro­tec­tion or equiv­a­lent legal res­i­dence sta­tus­es – large­ly pre­vent­ed smug­gling of migrants, in a sit­u­a­tion where over 6.7 mil­lion peo­ple from Ukraine sought refuge abroad.

Tar­get­ed infor­ma­tion cam­paigns, increased efforts to iden­ti­fy vic­tims of traf­fick­ing, law enforce­ment coop­er­a­tion and oth­er anti-traf­fick­ing poli­cies and actions by state and non-state actors, in Ukraine and in coun­tries of tran­sit and des­ti­na­tion, may have fur­ther strength­ened resilience. These mea­sures also show sig­nif­i­cant poten­tial for adap­ta­tion and appli­ca­tion to oth­er refugee dis­place­ments and migra­tion move­ments in Europe and elsewhere.

Nev­er­the­less, pre­car­i­ous employ­ment and accom­mo­da­tion sit­u­a­tions in host coun­tries make refugees from Ukraine vul­ner­a­ble to traf­fick­ing for forced labour. The involve­ment of Ukrain­ian refugee women in pros­ti­tu­tion and sex work in host coun­tries also presents indi­ca­tions of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and sex­u­al exploita­tion, includ­ing online.

Read the full study here in Eng­lish or Ukrain­ian.

Down­load the spe­cial points of inter­est here in Eng­lish or Ukrain­ian.