HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN UKRAINE ACCORDING TO POLICE STATISTICS (JANUARY 2006 — MAY 2023)

Abstract

This paper aims to present crime trends in Ukraine from January 2013 to May 2023. The focus lies on the impact of the 2022 Russian military aggression against Ukraine on human trafficking and ‘satellite’ crimes. The authors consider the occupation of the Eastern Ukrainian territories and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in 2014. They also refer to statistics of refugee waves from Ukraine after February 2022. The decrease in registered crimes can be attributed to the reduction of statistical indicators. Police statistics are significantly impacted by the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine when the police «lost» data from the occupied territories. The authors analyse the trends of human trafficking and ‘satellite’ crimes in Ukraine. While the number of registered trafficking cases is small, the dark figure seems quite high. But no estimates about the extent of human trafficking in Ukraine are currently possible. Moreover, it is difficult to outline precisely how the war affected human trafficking. One must await the further development in 2023 in order to analyse police and court statistics. Crime trends in Ukraine for the last ten years are a good example to prove the common social nature of THB crimes, ‘satellite’ crimes and smuggling of goods, timber and drugs (especially since 2019). As the police statistics show, trends of all the mentioned crimes have been changing in a similar way. A rapid increase in crimes of pimping or engaging a person in prostitution illustrate the control activities in this crime sector by the police. The authors suspect that crimes of pimping or engaging a person in prostitution will significantly increase in 2023, parallel to the increase of human trafficking.