Vladimir Putin’s scorched-earth campaign in Ukraine triggered Europe’s biggest refugee wave since World War II and, with it, a heyday for sex traffickers and their clients. An estimated 5 million Ukrainians have left their country, mainly women and children, and many are exceptionally vulnerable — severed from family, support networks and sources of income in the towns and villages they fled.
The result is a burgeoning population of newcomers across Europe who, having been victimized by Russia’s invasion, are often targets for re-victimization in the countries in which they have sought refuge. Law enforcement agencies, struggling to catch up, need tougher laws and a more adroit approach to protecting the refugees and going after predators who exploit them.
European host nations have been generous to Ukrainians who have flooded across their borders, granting them automatic residency for up to three years, along with work permits. As they arrive, Ukrainians are given priority for a variety of services — including housing, health care and language courses — ahead of asylum seekers who have fled violence and repression in Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The cost to Poland, which alone has absorbed at least 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees, is approaching $10 billion. Germany, the Czech Republic and others have also made major financial commitments.
At the same time, Europe has struggled to stay abreast of criminal networks that have preyed on Ukrainians for years, and whose targets of opportunity have grown exponentially since the Russian invasion a year ago. That is particularly true for lightly policed online platforms where Ukrainian refugees, including ones who are underage, are featured as sexually available as “escorts” and webcam performers. “Are governments going to say that brothels need to check the IDs of people working there, but websites don’t?” said Valiant Richey, a former U.S. federal prosecutor who is the top official for combating human trafficking and sex crimes for the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe. “Because that’s where we’re at.”
Alarmingly, data from web trackers have indicated enormous spikes, starting within days of Russia’s invasion, in online searches using terms related to Ukrainian prostitutes, escorts, pornography, child pornography and rape. Amid a flood of images depicting refugees streaming out of Ukrainian towns and villages to escape bombardment and battles, online predators saw vulnerability, and they pounced.
Follow Editorial Board's opinionsFollow
One sexual services website, Escort-Ireland, reported a 250 percent spike in its traffic, including Ukrainian women advertising their availability, within weeks of the invasion. According to the OSCE, the site claimed to offer users a way to live out their “war-inspired fantasies.” On March 17, about four weeks after the invasion, it boasted, “Ukraine is winning on the Escort-Ireland battlefield.” In Sweden — where, as in Ireland, prostitution is legal but buying sex is not — 30 of 38 men arrested for the crime last March were specifically soliciting Ukrainian women.
The ground for predation had been prepared by the pandemic, which accelerated the migration of child exploitation and other sex crimes to the web. Too often, that left law enforcement agencies and prosecutors flat-footed. In many European countries, authorities lack laws that would enable them to seize electronic evidence to prosecute human traffickers who prey on refugees. Social media chat sites that offer Ukrainian women and girls work in clubs or on webcams sometimes mention a maximum age, but no minimum age.
Press Enter to skip to end of carousel
End of carouselAlso on the Editorial Board’s agenda
- The misery of Belarus’s political prisoners should not be ignored.
- Biden has a new border plan.
- The United States should keep the pressure on Nicaragua.
- America’s fight against inflation isn’t over.
- The Taliban has doubled down on the repression of women.
- The world’s ice is melting quickly.
Ihar Losik, one of hundreds of young people unjustly jailed in Belarus for opposing Alexander Lukashenko’s dictatorship, attempted suicide but was saved and sent to a prison medical unit, according to the human rights group Viasna. Losik, 30, a blogger who led a popular Telegram channel, was arrested in 2020 and is serving a 15-year prison term on charges of “organizing riots” and “incitement to hatred.” His wife is also a political prisoner. Read more about their struggle — and those of other political prisoners — in a recent editorial.
The Department of Homeland Security has provided details of a plan to prevent a migrant surge along the southern border. The administration would presumptively deny asylum to migrants who failed to seek it in a third country en route — unless they face “an extreme and imminent threat” of rape, kidnapping, torture or murder. Critics allege that this is akin to an illegal Trump-era policy. In fact, President Biden is acting lawfully in response to what was fast becoming an unmanageable flow at the border. Read our most recent editorial on the U.S. asylum system.
Some 222 Nicaraguan political prisoners left that Central American country for the United States in February. President Daniel Ortega released and sent them into exile in a single motion. Nevertheless, it appears that Mr. Ortega let them go under pressure from economic sanctions the United States imposed on his regime when he launched a wave of repression in 2018. The Biden administration should keep the pressure on. Read recent editorials about the situation in Nicaragua.
Inflation remains stubbornly high at 6.4 percent in January. The Federal Reserve’s job is not done in this fight. More interest rate hikes are needed. Read a recent editorial about inflation and the Fed.
Afghanistan’s rulers had promised that barring women from universities was only temporary. But private universities got a letter on Jan. 28 warning them that women are prohibited from taking university entrance examinations. Afghanistan has 140 private universities across 24 provinces, with around 200,000 students. Out of those, some 60,000 to 70,000 are women, the AP reports. Read a recent editorial on women’s rights in Afghanistan.
A new study finds that half the world’s mountain glaciers and ice caps will melt even if global warming is restrained to 1.5 degrees Celsius — which it won’t be. This would feed sea-level rise and imperil water sources for hundreds of millions. Read a recent editorial on how to cope with rising seas, and another on the policies needed to fight climate change.
1/7
The United Nations warned in April that sex traffickers would take advantage of women fleeing Ukraine, and some human rights groups have zeroed in on the risk posed by European government-sponsored programs through which individuals offer to take Ukrainian refugees into their homes. Screening and verifying the safety of those homes often took a back seat to speed in the face of the crush of people fleeing the war.
Nonprofit groups across the continent, along with government social services agencies, have intensified information and awareness campaigns. More needs to be done to fashion a secure safety net, especially in providing child care, psychological and medical support, as well as jobs for refugees in desperate straits.
In addition, European policymakers and police agencies should mount a full-court enforcement press, especially by targeting online traffickers who profit from exploitation. Existing European Union laws outlaw online images portraying sex or sexual violence involving minors, but contain loopholes that allow sites to carry advertising for prostitutes whose age is unverified. Thousands of such websites are active across the continent. When officials confront them, site operators say the volume of sexual services advertising exceeds their ability to screen it for age compliance, said the OSCE’s Mr. Richey.
It’s critical that E.U. lawmakers close that loophole, that police intensify their monitoring of sex services websites, and that government agencies scrutinize business sectors where traffickers operate, including hospitality, cleaning and domestic care. Ukrainian refugees withstood enough suffering before fleeing their homes; they should not be subjected to more of it as they seek shelter in other countries.