Trafficking in plain sight, Europe has failed Ukraine’s most vulnerable refugees

4 July 2025, 09:47

By Megan Gittoes

@MeganJGittoes

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, millions were displaced overnight triggering Europe’s worst refugee crisis since WWII - of which 90% were women and children.

The West responded swiftly with humanitarian aid, but largely overlooked one of the most immediate and foreseeable threats: human and sexual trafficking.

Following the outbreak of conflict in Ukraine in 2014, the number of Ukrainian trafficking victims identified in Western Europe quadrupled by 2016. Since 2022, a similar spike has been observed within Ukraine’s borders - but not across them. This is striking, particularly as trafficking across Europe hit a ten-year high that year.

Such data gaps are not uncommon. Human trafficking is notoriously difficult to detect, with victims often going unidentified.

Many belong to so-called ‘hidden populations’ - refugees, undocumented migrants, and those coerced into sex work or crime - people who lack legal protections and remain isolated by fear and coercion, leaving them largely invisible to law enforcement.

One official international report dismissed concerns by claiming conditions at the border did not align with traffickers’ typical methods.

It even suggested that media warnings at the time were harming, rather than helping, refugees. Yet those working on the ground - many of whom had directly intervened to prevent exploitation - described a stark absence of meaningful engagement from those very same international organisations.

While in Ukraine, officials and NGOs shared with me anecdotal accounts of refugees falling into exploitation - and in some cases, disappearing altogether.

They also pointed to Ukrainian refugees in Europe who were arrested, only to later be identified as trafficking victims, highlighting the dangerous intersection between exploitation and organised crime.

So where does this disconnect come from?

My research found that several pointed to the financial support available to Ukrainian refugees across Europe to explain the low levels of trafficking. But this assumption failed to account for how quickly predators adapt to exploit these very support systems.

Even in the UK, offers of shelter under the ‘Homes for Ukraine’ scheme left female refugees particularly vulnerable. One charity investigated a room being offered and reportedly found it was fitted with locks outside and cameras inside. Instances were recorded in which refugees were compelled to perform labour for their hosts.

This example noted a farm using the scheme to bring people to the UK to work, then charging them rent.

I received evidence of refugee centres being targeted with job adverts, later traced by investigators to long-standing exploitative networks that had adapted to target Ukrainians following the invasion.

Similarly, German NGOs have raised concerns about young Ukrainian women being exploited by human traffickers, often ending up in prostitution rings due to gaps in the state support.

One intelligence team on the ground said that they intercepted a man convicted of serious sexual offences in the UK masquerading as humanitarian aid.

They described refugee centres, devoid of adequate oversight, as fertile ground for predators offering jobs, housing or simply waiting outside the sites.

At the same time it was said that law enforcement across Europe failed to take proactive action. In their report, a man attempting to coerce refugee women into his vehicle was neither arrested nor questioned - and he simply returned a few hours later.

They also described intercepting traffickers who used “spotters” to target unaccompanied Ukrainian women and children at the border in Ukraine.

Their counterparts in Poland would then approach with offers of travel and shelter - often a front for exploitation. In one case, a man was found with photos of women waiting to cross in his phone.

One intelligence specialist raised concerns with me about the sharp rise in demand for Ukrainian women in pornography, linking it directly to the unfolding refugee crisis.

The Vienna OSCE Office of the Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings reported a major rise in online searches for sexual content related to Ukrainian women and girls.

Searches for terms such as "escort," "porn," or "rape" alongside "Ukrainian" increased by up to 600%, and "Ukraine refugee porn" became a popular search trend.

In Ukraine’s case, the internet has become a particular tool of exploitation. Young women’s online social media platforms were flooded with predatory job offers from content agencies masquerading as supportive and legitimate. Ukrainian women were targeted and asked to make explicit content for a well known online platform.

Reports from one refugee and investigative journalist said that as soon as the war broke out these “agencies” began approaching Ukrainian women and those who signed up had their profiles controlled by third parties who pocketed up to 70-80% of their income.

Still, the dominant narrative persists that there was little trafficking risk.

This was not an unforeseen risk. The signs were there. The patterns were familiar. Yet the response, both on the ground and at the policy level, was slow, fragmented, and too often dismissive of credible warnings.

This crisis exposed a fundamental failure to recognise and respond to the modern face of trafficking - one that is opportunistic, tech-enabled, and alarmingly adaptive.

However, our understanding of this form of exploitation is dangerously outdated. The idea that perpetrators wait patiently to cultivate trust is not only naïve, it is directly contradicted by first-hand evidence. The reality is that organised networks adapt and exploit chaos with ruthless efficiency.

The problem now is that many remain trapped. As political will and policy support for refugees begin to wane across Europe, their vulnerability will rise.

Three years on, many still fail to acknowledge that Ukrainian refugees were at acute risk. Trafficking didn’t hide in the shadows. It operated in plain sight. What failed them wasn’t a lack of warning, it was a lack of response.

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Megan Gittoes is an Associate Fellow for GLOBSEC and has been conducting research on the ground in Ukraine.

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