Human Trafficking in [Ukraine Street Children in [Ukraine] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Ukraine] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Ukraine [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] Ukraine is a source, transit, and destination country for men,
women, and children trafficked transnationally for
the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Ukrainian
women are trafficked to Russia, Poland, Turkey, the Czech Republic, the United
Arab Emirates, Austria, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Greece, Israel, Spain,
Lebanon, Hungary, Slovak Republic, Cyprus, United Kingdom, Netherlands,
Serbia, Argentina, Norway, and Bahrain. The majority of Ukrainian labor
trafficking victims were men exploited in Russia, the Czech Republic and
Poland, primarily forced to work as construction laborers, sailors, and
factory and agriculture workers. There are indications Ukraine is a
destination for people from neighboring countries trafficked for forced labor
and sexual exploitation. In addition, trafficking occurs within Ukraine; men
and women are trafficked within the country for the purposes of labor
exploitation in the agriculture and service sectors, commercial sexual
exploitation, and forced begging. Ukrainian children are trafficked both
internally and transnationally for commercial
sexual exploitation, forced begging, and involuntary servitude in the
agriculture industry. An IOM survey released in December 2006 concluded that
since 1991, approximately 117,000 Ukrainians had been forced into
exploitative situations in Europe, the Middle East, and Russia. - U.S. State Dept
Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2008
[full country report] |
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CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Ukraine leads in number of human trafficking victims in Eastern Europe, group says More Ukrainian men, women and children have been trafficked abroad and forced into indentured labor or prostitution than in any other Eastern European country since the Soviet collapse, an international migration group said in a report Monday. The organization said the full scale of trafficking through, from and within Eastern Europe is difficult to determine since most victims are unwilling, scared or unable to contact authorities. Sex Traffickers Prey On Eastern Europeans Maria is a 30-year-old mother from Ukraine who left behind her husband and two young children to take what she was told would be a job in Italy as a cleaner. The recruiters who originally promised her a high-paying salary were men who posed as representatives of a legitimate employment agency. Maria says they gained her trust because they looked professional and persuasive. ***
ARCHIVES *** Mobile phones
in the fight against human trafficking - Dial 527 TRAFFICKING
HOTLINE - In the Ukraine, now even the
simplest of handsets could potentially save lives thanks to three of the
country's leading service providers who have collaborated with
the International Organization for Migration to set up a toll-free
information hotline. Customers of Ukrainian mobile phone service providers KyivStar, UMC and life:) can
dial '527' from their handsets in
order to receive information and advice from the IOM on migration and
trafficking issues, and potential migrants will also get information on legal
methods of migration. Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – There were also reports that both
women and men were forced to work in agriculture, especially in the southern
regions, in summer and autumn. Children were exploited in industrial cities
in the east. For example, 2 adults in the eastern town of Men were mainly trafficked as construction
workers and miners. Children who were trafficked across the border or within
the country were forced to provide sexual services, engage in unpaid work, or
beg. The overwhelming majority of trafficking victims were women, who were
used as sex‑workers, housekeepers, seamstresses, and dishwashers.
Trafficked women were also used to bear children for infertile couples. There
was a lack of information regarding male victims of trafficking, because men
generally did not recognize themselves as victims of trafficking. As a
result, men rarely addressed complaints to law enforcement agencies. Estimates regarding the number of
trafficked citizens varied, but the IOM stated that one 1 of every 10 persons
knew someone in their community who has been trafficked. According to Human
Rights Ombudsman Karpachova, approximately five to
seven million citizens lived and worked abroad, many without legal
protection, and were therefore potentially vulnerable to traffickers. Traffickers used a variety of
methods to recruit victims, including advertisements in newspapers and on
television and radio that offered jobs abroad with high salaries and promises
of modeling contracts, marriage proposals, and trips through travel agencies.
Traffickers often presented themselves as friends of other friends and
deceived the relatives of potential victims. Most of the traffickers were
members of organized crime groups. The traffickers often paid for the
processing of passports and travel documents for the victims, thus placing
them into debt bondage. In some cases the traffickers simply kidnapped their
victims. Concluding
Observations Of The Committee On The Rights Of The Child (CRC) - 1995 [11] The Committee is worried by
the high rate of abandonment of children, especially new-born babies, and the
lack of a comprehensive strategy to assist vulnerable families. This
situation can lead to illegal inter-country adoption or other forms of
trafficking and sale of children. In this context the Committee is also
concerned about the absence of any law prohibiting the sale and trafficking
of children, and the fact that the right of the child to have his/her
identity preserved is not guaranteed by the law. Ukraine
woman forced to dance at strip club testifies in D.C. Lured from the Ukraine with the
promise of a student visa, the young woman believed she was headed to the
U.S. to study and to Virginia Beach to work as a waitress -- not to Detroit,
where she was forced to dance at a strip club. Using the alias "Katya"
to protect herself, the 22-year-old woman spoke publicly for the first time
today, describing to a congressional panel how she was forced to work at the
Detroit club for months until she and another young woman escaped with the
help of one of the patrons of the club.
"They forced me to work six days a week for 12 hours a day,"
she said of the men who made her work at Cheetah's in Detroit. "I could
not refuse to go to work or I would be beaten." While she was forced to
dance at the strip club, she said she was not made to be a prostitute. Harbor
Springs man helps fight abuse and human trafficking in Ukraine In terms of human trafficking,
Wiser said the committee supports groups directly involved with victims. They
are also working to prevent traffickers from receiving information about
orphans. “Traffickers are getting this
information on when these kids get released and then they target them. We
want to seal this information so it’s not available,” Wiser said. Eight
Israelis charged with trafficking human organs Israeli police have broken up an
organ transplanting ring that persuaded dozens of Israelis to have their
kidneys removed in Ukraine. But, because Israeli law does not explicitly
forbid the trafficking of organs, police may have to release the suspects. It’s not difficult to become an
organ donor. Ads have appeared in both the Russian and Arabic press. Dozens
of people are believed to have been duped into donating their body
organs. We are co-operating with the
Ukrainian justice system. In Ukraine and Israel, there is no law that a
person cannot sell body organs. But what police are charging is that they
were trafficking organs, which is illegal,” said Lizzy
Troend, defence
lawyer. Israel allows transplants from
relatives or anonymous donors, but the law forbids anyone to buy organs. - IsUkr Ukraine
leads in number of human trafficking victims in Eastern Europe, group says More Ukrainian men, women and children
have been trafficked abroad and forced into indentured labor or prostitution
than in any other Eastern European country since the Soviet collapse, an
international migration group said in a report Monday. The organization said the full
scale of trafficking through, from and within Eastern Europe is difficult to
determine since most victims are unwilling, scared or unable to contact
authorities. Queen Sylvia of Sweden awards Ukrainians for
anti-trafficking efforts http://5.ua/eng/newsline/179/140/30560/ A recently created department
within the Interior ministry has liquidated 60 criminal groups that were
involved in human trafficking. More than 700 victims of the modern-day slave
trade have been returned to the country. Ukraine
Appeals For Action To Stop Human Trafficking "The sale of young girls and
women, sex and economic slavery are part of an international criminal
business that has taken root in Ukraine," Yuriy
Pavlenko, head of a state council to combat human
trafficking, told the 31st session of the council's General Assembly. "It spreads fast...It demands joint
efforts and active co-operation from all governments and societies," he
said. NATASHAS - The New Global Sex Trade SMUGGLER'S PREY - Every day, scores of young women throughout the former East Bloc are lured by job offers that lead to a hellish journey of sexual slavery and violence. Despite the barrage of warnings on radio and TV, in newspapers and on billboards, desperate women continue to line up with their naiveté and applications in hand, hoping that, this time, they might just be in luck. Ukrainian
law enforcement liquidated the human trafficking channel Having financial strait, young
woman from Kherson found ad proposing well-paid job
abroad (bar-women and waitresses). “The malefactor sold Kherson
resident to Turkish citizen for $2,400. The victim had to work it off by
prostitution”. Revealed:
kept in a dungeon ready to be sold as slaves The women, aged 18 to 24, are from across eastern Europe, lured from Romania, Moldova, Ukraine and Bulgaria, with promises of good jobs as waitresses, au pairs and dancers. Instead, they have been forced into modern-day slavery in western Macedonia, locked in the dirty cellar and only summoned upstairs by their masters to perform sexual services for customers who are usually drunk and often violent. When they were found, the victims, some of whom had been "broken in" as prostitutes in other countries on the way to Macedonia, barely knew where they were. They had no idea what the future held but knew that it was beyond their control. Sex
Traffickers Prey On Eastern Europeans Maria is a 30-year-old mother from
Ukrainian women freed from sexual slavery in Turkey thanks to phone tip-off The women - one of whom was held
for six years - were set to return to Ukraine after being rescued by Turkish
police following a call to the "157" hotline, which is run by the
IOM, the Geneva-based organization said.
Impoverished women from Eastern Europe are lured to Ukrainians
Vulnerable to the Sex Trade Yulia said she left her hometown of Donestk four years ago for a job in one of With her family life destroyed,
Anna became desperate. She struggled on until someone she had met offered her
a job working at a hotel in another country. Anna accepted the position in
hopes of finding a better life. Her
dreams were dashed, however. After being taken abroad, and after a trip
across a desert on a pickup truck, she was locked inside an apartment. There
was no hotel job waiting for her, nor was there a hotel. Instead, she was
raped up to nine times a day by different men who paid her captors for the
sex. Anna had unwittingly become trapped in sex slavery. Russian Girls
Eager to Work Abroad, Despite the Danger of Sex Trafficking The Ukrainian Interior Ministry and the Israeli police
conducted a special operation, as a result of which an Israeli national
recruiting girls from the CIS was detained in ICE arrests men who forced women to work as strippers http://www.realpolice.net/forums/archive/index.php?t-28854.html According to the criminal
complaint, xxxxxxxxxxxx, 32, who is a citizen of
Lithuania, and xxxxxxxxxxx, 25, a U.S. citizen, are
suspected of recruiting women from the Ukraine to travel to the United States
under the guise of working as waitresses here. Once the women arrived in the
U.S., they were forced to work at “Cheetah’s” strip club. The women
were driven to their work from their apartment and back again. There was no
telephone in their apartment. The complaint also states the women were
intimidated, hit and threatened with death if they tried to leave. Trafficking in Women from Ukraine [PDF] EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - Eighty percent of the traffickers
are Ukrainian citizens, and about 60 percent are women. The traffickers use women who were formerly
in prostitution as recruiters. The pimps in the destination countries places
orders with the traffickers for the number of women they need. Once the women
arrive at the destination, the criminal group controls them. Women must repay
inflated debts before they are released and their identity and/or travel
documents returned. If the women do not comply they are threatened, beaten,
and raped. A former trafficker/pimp presented the researchers with
photographs of a victim being humiliated. These photographs were used to
control her. Victims and family members of
victims are afraid to talk to the police. Often victims do not tell their
friends and families what has happened to them while they were abroad. Only
12 percent reported their victimization. The risk of retaliation from the
traffickers and organized crime groups is too high. The “Natasha”
Trade: The Transnational Shadow Market of Trafficking in Women [PDF] Irina, aged 18, responded to an
advertisement in a Kyiv, Ukraine newspaper for a training course in Berlin in
1996. With a fake passport, she traveled to Berlin, Germany where she was
told that the school had closed. She was sent on to Brussels, Belgium for a
job. When she arrived she was told she needed to repay a debt of US$10,000
and would have to earn the money in prostitution. Her passport was
confiscated, and she was threatened, beaten and raped. When she didn’t earn
enough money she was sold to a Belgium pimp who operated in Rue d’Aarschot in the Brussel’s red
light district. When she managed to escape through the assistance of police,
she was arrested because she had no legal documentation. A medical exam
verified the abuse she had suffered, such as cigarette burns all over her
body. Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 3 Civil Liberties: 2 Status: Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide Stop
Violence Against Women – Country Page Ukranian National Consultation on the Commercial Sexual
Exploitation of Children BORDER REGULATIONS FACILITATE TRAFFICKING OF
CHILDREN - Ukraine is also a major supplier and transit country of children
trafficked for sexual purposes. According to International Organization for
Migration reports, 10% of all trafficking victims who are known to return to
Ukraine are aged 12 to 18. Trafficking of Ukrainian children is a relatively
easy operation because of inappropriate agreements reached between Ukraine
and border countries Russia, Moldova and Belarus. According to the current
Visa-Free Travel Regime applicable to children under 16, only a child’s birth
certificate needs to be presented before a child is allowed to cross these
borders legally. However, these certificates do not carry photos, and it is
easy for traffickers to take children across borders using another child’s
certificate. This also hampers preventive action to stop trafficking of
children from Ukraine through these countries to the neighbouring
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). A
modern slave's brutal odyssey EX-TRAFFICKER'S STORY - One former trafficker, now
working with the authorities and living at a secret address, told Slavery
Today how his former gang would operate.
"Most of the time we would use professional recruiters, but at
times we would kidnap women and children ourselves," he said. "The children were taken to be sold in
Italy, and the better-looking women were kept as prisoners and made to work
as prostitutes. "The men were
transported wherever they wanted to go."
He also said that the youngest child who had been abducted was around
18 months old. "I have heard that sick
children are sold and made into beggars.
"The healthy ones are kept and trained to work for the Mafia, to
deal drugs, to murder - whatever they are capable of. "I've also heard that some children
were sold for organs. This also happened with men and women, depending on the
demand." Last year, life for 15 year-old Ioana had become unbearable. Though she was one of the
best pupils in her class, she had abandoned school and decided to leave her
home and her alcoholic parents, moving in with her grandparents. One day,
while at the market here in the Moldavian capital, she met a woman from a neighbouring village who listened attentively to her woes
and proposed that she accompany her to Ukraine where she could find a
job. Customs was no problem. Despite
her young age, Ioana was able to cross the border
in the company of a stranger, identified only by a birth certificate of a
trafficker's (neighbor lady's) daughter. From September to April 2003, Ioana was forced
to sell goods on a market in Ukraine. As compensation, she received a
pair of winter clothes and food. Eventually, Ukrainian police who had been
searching for her at the request of her mother, found the girl and returned
her to her home. Paradoxically, Ioana reportedly
told the police she preferred life with the trafficker to her own home,
believing life was better on the run than among her alcoholic parents. Czech Police
detained criminal group responsible for trafficking Ukrainian women The criminals had promised their
victims respectable jobs with high salaries. It was only at the Czech
border that the girls realized they would have to “work off” the value of
their tickets, visas, and work permits at the night club. In Rostov region, Russia, a trafficker was sentenced to 5
years of imprisonment Having trusted the promises of Zaur Mamedov, a minor girl went
to the UAE, to the town Abu-Dabi. When arrived to
the country, she noticed at once that there wasn’t any decent job for her
promised in Ukraine, instead of it she would work in one of the Emirates’
brothel. A woman of
20, Lviv resident, forced minors to prostitution According to the Public Relations Centre’s information, the pimp offered girls a job of
waitresses at the camping site. For her own money she bought them clothes and
lodged in rooms. Then she was saying that there was no vacant place for a
waitress, and it is necessary to pay off the money already spent and offered
them to work them off by prositution. II. Vital Voices
Anti- Trafficking Activities FOR SALE
OR RENT— THE CAPTIVE DAUGHTERS OF UKRAINE - Ms. Verveer
talked about her encounters with Ukrainian women pleading for help with their
missing daughters during her trip she made in 1997 as the Chief of Staff to First
Lady Hillary Clinton. “They were crying and asking for our help because their
daughters and neighbors were missing and they didn’t know what to do. It was
not until then did we realize how serious the trafficking problem was.” After
that trip, the Clinton Administration began working with NGOs, legal experts,
and government agencies to pass legislation that eventually became the U.S.
Trafficking Victims Protection Act in 2000. [page 35]
The experts consulted in the course of the research believe that girls
are sold for between US$2,000 and US$10,000 each. The destination countries
are Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Canada, Italy, the United States, Germany, the
Arab Emirates and Japan. Experts
Criticize EU Over Human Trafficking KIDNAPPED AND HELPLESS - The victims are often utterly
dependent on their employers as they are unable to legally apply for
residence permits, Wijers said. Entire industries
rely on the illegal workers who are kept as slaves, she said. The authorities
should develop witness protection programs for victims willing to testify
against traffickers and national referral mechanisms to identify victims. He cited intelligence and police
information as identifying a growing demand for underage girls. Women from
Eastern Europe, particularly Ukraine,
Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria continue to make up the largest number of
victims, Lilya 4-Ever
- Critically acclaimed
feature-length film about trafficking While exact numbers are difficult
to pinpoint, roughly 75% of the apprehended cases of trafficking victims in
the New York area in the past year have been from Eastern Europe - about 50%
comprise young women and children from Ukraine. Ukraine's Top
Dissident Raises a Rare Female Voice LOOKING FOR A BETTER LIFE ABROAD - Because of the lack of equal
opportunities in Ukraine, many gifted and educated women feel compelled to
look for better life abroad, says parliamentarian Bilozir.
She adds that about 70 percent of Ukrainian labor migrants are women. "I had graduated from one of
the top universities in the country, and still there were no prospects for a
good job or a good life," says Natalia Cherkaska, an information-technology specialist who grew
up in Lviv, a major city in Western Ukraine and now
lives in San Francisco. "The pay there is meager. And on tope of that,
most men drink, demanding that a woman takes care of them and the kids." Women's limited work opportunities
"may leave them vulnerable to being trafficked into the commercial sex
industry or other forms of forced labor," according to the Human Rights
Watch report. The World Bank said in
its 2000 report that the trafficking of women from Ukraine into forced labor
"has reached an unprecedented level even when compared to other Former
Soviet Union countries." Tatiana's Story - Prostitution - Ukraine to
Holland http://www.campaignon.com/stophumantraffic/Tatiana%27s%20Story/default.aspx Like most victims of trafficking,
Tatiana's reason for travelling abroad was to
support her family. Through an agent in Belarus, she arranged to move to
Holland to work as a waitress. A number of the agent's contacts assisted her
in her journey from Belarus, through Germany to Holland, and everything went sméoothly, until she arrived. Once in Holland, Tatiana was
taken to a night club where she was forced to work as a prostitute. For the
next four months she was a prisoner, living and working in the club. All her
earnings were taken by the club owner, for rent, food and other living costs,
and he also demanded payment for her initial travel expenses from Belarus.
Her dream of earning money as a waitress had turned into a nightmare. She was
unable to send money home, and could not find a way to escape her desperate
situation. On top of all this, she was subjected to regular beatings. Trafficking
in Women from Ukraine Research Project U.S. - Ukraine Research
Partnership Trafficking
in Women: Moldova and Ukraine [PDF] [page 25] III. TRAFFICKING IN MOLDOVA AND UKRAINE A. INTRODUCTION - In 1999, La Strada,
an NGO working on trafficking of women in Ukraine, reported that 420,000
Ukrainian women had been taken out of country. A police officer in Ukraine reported that
in the summer, about 20 women a week leave Luhansk. One senior member of the police force in Donetsk, Ukraine, who is active in fighting trafficking,
estimated, “500-1000 girls leave Donetsk for Turkey
and other places monthly. In some towns, 95% of the girls have gone to Greece
or Turkey to work as prostitutes. Three to five years ago, girls were tricked
and cheated into going. But now they often go voluntarily in order to make
money.” He said he knows of some women
who have been deported five or six times, “they change their passport and try
to go again.” Information Campaign Against Trafficking in Women from Ukraine [PDF] [page 14]
CHAPTER 3
FROM MIGRATION INTENTIONS TO TRAFFICKING - The nation-wide survey has
revealed a direct correlation between the adverse domestic economic condition
and surveyed women’s desire to migrate. From intending to migrate to
resorting to traffickers, however, is a large step. However, there is a growing
consensus that “trafficking must be seen as part of the world-wide
feminization of poverty and of labour migration”.
When women are structurally denied access to the formal and regulated labour market, they are increasingly being pushed into
unprotected or criminalized labour markets, such as
sexual and exploitative domestic work. MARINA - I’d sat there for a long time
and didn’t know what to do. Then a nice women came to me and brought me some
food. She asked about my parents and my birthplace. The woman was Polish and
I understood her quite well. She asked me weather I knew I had to work as
prostitute. I began to cry. TANYA - She got the passport and visa and flew to Abu-Dabu. After the arrival her passport was taken out and
she was informed she had been sold for $ 7000 and from that moment she had to
work in a bar attracting clients RAISA - It was going on about half of
the year. But one day Azim said to my daughter that
she had to move to another man. She began to protest but he showed to her
money which he had received from that man and explained that she became the
slave of that man OLEXANDRA - After some time women were
resent to Germany across the river. They were resold from one place to other
by Turkish men several times. In brothels they were pushed to serve clients
together with Polish, Bulgarian and Czech women All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC §
107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use |
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Human Trafficking in [Ukraine Street Children in [Ukraine] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Ukraine] [other countries]