According to the latest report by the US Department of State on global trafficking in persons, the government of Ukraine has not met minimum standards in combating this crime due to widespread corruption in the country. The report highlights Ukraine’s significant efforts in this direction, but points to serious challenges that prevent full implementation of international standards in this area.
The agency noted that corruption, especially in the police and judiciary, and the complicity of officials in crimes related to human trafficking remained serious problems that hindered law enforcement action.
The State Department noted Ukraine's efforts, despite the reduction in resources and capabilities due to Russia's full-scale invasion.
The Ukrainian government identified more victims of human trafficking and continued large-scale awareness-raising campaigns in coordination with international organizations.
The State Department noted that Ukraine failed to meet minimum standards in several key areas. Judges continued to issue lenient sentences that did not include prison time for most convicted traffickers, weakening deterrence and undermining efforts to combat trafficking.
Despite ongoing concerns about corruption contributing to impunity for trafficking-related crimes and investigations into complicit officials, the government failed to secure a single conviction for the seventh consecutive year.
The Ukrainian government also failed to identify any foreign victims of human trafficking, and while the government has taken some steps to protect unaccompanied children, the report noted that shortcomings in state oversight of children evacuated from Ukrainian care facilities have increased their risk of trafficking.
The report also mentions crimes related to human trafficking committed in previous years and for which investigations are not completed.
“In 2023, the Lviv prosecutor’s office prosecuted a government official for alleged sex trafficking in France; the Prosecutor General’s Office investigated the actions of a military commander for alleged forced labor; the Kyiv City Police investigated the actions of a former deputy police chief and a police officer on suspicion of sex trafficking; and the prosecutor’s office charged two former police officers with human trafficking. The government reported that numerous prosecutions for the involvement of officials in human trafficking crimes initiated in previous years are ongoing,” the report states.
The report also reports that Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has forced 6.4 million people to flee Ukraine, and more than 3.4 million more have become internally displaced.
The majority of those who have fled the country are women and children. These refugees and displaced persons are particularly vulnerable to human trafficking.
Experts note that thousands of unaccompanied children, as well as children evacuated from at least 195 institutions, including children with disabilities, are at high risk of falling into a human trafficking situation.
The State Department report states that Russian forces have forcibly relocated up to 1.6 million Ukrainians, including thousands of children, the elderly, and people with disabilities, to Russia, Belarus, and the occupied territories of Ukraine, including many to remote areas. As of January 2024, Russian authorities have reportedly returned approximately 500 children to Ukraine, a paltry number compared to the thousands of children forcibly deported.
The U.S. Department of State's Trafficking in Persons Monitoring and Countering Trafficking in Persons Division publishes the Trafficking in Persons Report annually, which ranks 188 countries on their efforts to combat human trafficking. The report uses a three-tier system based on the Trafficking in Persons and Violence Protection Act of 2000
Tier 1 countries are those that fully comply with the TVPA’s minimum standards. Countries in this tier have minimal risks of human trafficking because their governments have implemented adequate protections: the United States, Germany, Estonia, Georgia, Poland, and others.
Tier 2 includes countries that are making significant efforts to comply with the TVPA minimum standards, but do not fully comply with them. This tier includes most countries, such as Ukraine, Italy, Hungary, Switzerland, Romania, Iraq, and others.
Level 3 – countries that do not fully comply with the TVPA minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so: Russia, Belarus, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Venezuela, and others.
Haiti, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen were included in the "isolated cases" category this year, where massive human rights violations are noted.
