The flood of women and children from Putin’s war is a despicable gift to human traffickers

This is part one in a series. For the rest of the series, go here.

More than 10 million Ukrainians have left their homes since Russia’s invasion began two months ago. At least half of those people have fled the country — mostly women, children and the elderly, with men of fighting age or those working in essential industries forced to stay behind.

Children have had to cross borders alone while grandparents chaperone their grandchildren and their friends’ grandchildren. Mothers, their arms full of their life’s possessions, navigate systems in foreign languages, dealing with trauma, fatigue and worry. After weeks of sleeping on cold basement floors, hearing shelling and air-raid sirens go off around them, many refugees are on the brink of delirium.

They’re prime targets for human traffickers who, either working for a known organisation or acting alone, seek to send them into sexual slavery or labour exploitation. Children make up a third of all known trafficking victims — a proportion that has tripled in the past 15 years. Women make up the bulk of victims, with most subject to sexual exploitation.

The risk of human trafficking is well known, with police and NGOs primed to look out for risks. But the war erupted suddenly. Within one week of Russia’s invasion, more than a million people had already fled. Humanitarian workers describe 20 kilometres of cars waiting at the border crossing — at least 4000 vehicles attempting to cross at a single border point.

The sheer scale of the crisis meant many important safeguards to protect refugees weren’t immediately implemented. Two months into the crisis, many protections are still lacking.

Unidentified “volunteers” can still wander in and out of a multitude of refugee hubs and transit centres across Europe, offering rides and services to Ukrainians — in some cases, for a fee. Background checks still haven’t been implemented for volunteers and host families across Poland. In Siret, Romania, unaccompanied minors weren’t identified and assisted by social services for the first week of the crisis, left to travel onward alone. And in Palanca, Moldova, shady characters in expensive cars approach refugees offering expensive lifts to wherever their hearts desire. 

No long-term accommodation has been set up for Ukrainians, with many staying with friends, family or hosts they met online. One man in Norway has been charged with raping a 17-year-old in his home, just days after she entered the country.

Authorities are attempting to crack down on traffickers with sting operations and online investigations, while NGOs are attempting to vet volunteers and limit who can approach refugees. But many of these actions come too little too late — meaning the full scale of abuse and exploitation is still unknown. 

The longer the war goes on, the more vulnerable Ukrainian refugees become as they struggle to start their new lives or wait in limbo to return home.

In this multi-part investigative series, Crikey explores the risk factors for trafficking across central Europe, looking at what’s being done about it — and where local governments lag behind.

To read the next part in this series, click here.