“They were looking for beautiful women to sell them”: traffickers pose as fake volunteers to capture Ukrainian women

Five weeks of a brutal invasion of Russia to Ukraine. Imagine for a moment what it is like to live there right now.

Bombs, bloodshed, trauma. No school for your children, no health care for your parents, no safe roof over your head.

Would you try to run away? Ten million of Ukrainians have already done so, according to the United Nations.

Most seek refuge in other areas of Ukraine, which are believed to be safer. But more than three and a half million people have fled across the border.

They are mainly Women and childrenas the Ukrainian government forces men under the age of 60 to stay in the country and fight.

Displaced and disoriented, often not knowing where to go, refugees they are forced to trust strangers.

The chaos of war may be behind them, but the truth is that they are not entirely safe outside Ukraine either.

“For the predators and human traffickersthe war in Ukraine is not a tragedy,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned on Twitter.It’s a chanceand women and children are the targets.”

Trafficking networks are notoriously active in Ukraine and neighboring countries in peacetime. And now the fog of war is the perfect cover to increase business.

The risk of children

Karolina Wierzbińska, coordinator of Homo Faber, a human rights organization based in Lublin, Poland, told me that minors were the big concern.

Many were traveling out of Ukraine unaccompanied, he explained. Various children disappeared and their current whereabouts are unknown as a result of irregular registration processes in Poland and other border regions, especially at the beginning of the war.

My colleagues and I headed to the Polish-Ukrainian border to see for ourselves.

At a train station, well known for the arrival of refugees, we find a hive of activity. Stunned-looking women and crying children everywhere.

Ukrainian women arrive with their children every day in neighboring countries.

Many were being comforted and an army of volunteers wearing fluorescent vests offered them hot food from steaming industrial-size pots.

Something that seemed very well organized. But it is not so much.

We met Margherita Husmanov, a Ukrainian refugee from kyiv in her early 20s. She arrived at the border two weeks ago, but she decided to stay to help prevent other refugees from falling into the wrong hands.

I asked him if he felt vulnerable. “Yes,” she answered without hesitation. “That’s especially why I care about her safety.”

“The women and children come here from a terrible war. They don’t speak Polish or English. They do not know what is happening and believe what they are told“, Explain.

“Anyone can show up at this station. The first day I volunteered, I saw three men from Italy. They were looking for beautiful women to sell into the sex trade.“, keep going.

“I called the police and it turns out he was right. It wasn’t paranoia… It’s horrible.”

What is being done?

Margherita Husmanov says that the local authorities are now a bit more organized. Police regularly patrol the station.

Some people (mainly men) who carried flashy destination name signs, so present in the first weeks of refugee arrivals, have largely disappeared.

But as we learned from various sources, other people with bad intentions are now posing as volunteers.

Margherita Husmanov is a Ukrainian refugee who is now a volunteer.

Elena Moskvitina shared her experience on Facebook. She is now safe in Denmark, so we had a long chat on Skype. What happened to him is chilling.

She and her children crossed from Ukraine to neighboring Romania. They were looking for a trip far from the border.

ensures that false volunteers at a refugee center they asked him where he was staying.

They showed up later that day and told her that Switzerland was the best place to go and that she would be taken there in a van along with other women.

Moskvitina explains that men they looked at her and her daughter “in a bad way”. Her daughter was petrified.

They asked him to show them his son, who was in another room. They looked him up and down, she said. They then insisted that he travel alone, and got angry when he asked to see his ID.

To keep the men away from her family, Moskvitina promised to meet them when the other women were in her truck. But as soon as they left, she explains, she grabbed her children and ran off.

“They are exposed to fear and exploitation”

Elżbieta Jarmulska, a Polish businesswoman, is the founder of the Women Take The Wheel initiative. Her goal, she says, is to provide Ukrainian refugees a “security bubble”.

“Those women have already been through a lot, walking or driving through a war zone and then they are exposed to fear and exploitation here. I have no words to describe what that must be like,” she says.

Elżbieta Jarmulska organizes safe trips for women and their children.

So far, it has recruited more than 650 “amazing women” from Polandas he describes them, who drive back and forth as far as they can to the Polish-Ukrainian border, to provide refugees with safe transportation.

I accompany Elżbieta Jarmulska, better known as Ela, to a refugee center where she makes sure to show officials her ID and proof of residency, before asking if anyone wants to go to Warsaw.

His car was taken care of quickly. The passengers are refugees, Nadia and her three children.

Ela accommodated the family in her well-appointed car and offered the young children water, chocolate and motion sickness pills in case they needed them.

Meanwhile, Nadia told me about her dangerous journey out of the Ukraine from Kharkiv. Already in Poland, she said that she was so relieved to have a woman behind the wheel.

Nadia and her children got safe transportation.

He had heard about the risks of human trafficking and exploitation on Ukrainian radio. But he came anyway.

He said that his house was being bombed. The risks of war were immediate.

Need

Ela cares about the best for the refugees, because leaving the border safe does not mean that the danger is over.

Most of the women we spoke to expected to return home as soon as the violence ended. But for the next few days, weeks, even months, they need a place to sleep, eat, send their children to school, as well as a job to support themselves.

These needs make refugees vulnerable.

European Union leaders unanimously approved a measure to open up the labor market, schools and access to health care for Ukrainians, but as human rights groups point out, refugees need help registering and learning about their rights. .

One of the volunteers I met at the Polish-Ukrainian border said that when you are depressed, friendless and in need of money, you may end up doing things you never imagined.

All refugees are vulnerable to exploitation.

This woman was lured into prostitution when she was younger. And that, she says, is in large part why she now helps Ukrainian refugee women.

“I want to protect them. To warn them,” he says. He asked me not to reveal her name. Since then, she has changed her life and does not want her children to know about her past.

Of deceitful good intentions

Five weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, systems across Europe that screen Ukrainians in need of help are still far from foolproof.

Organized crime (including sex and organ trafficking, and often forced labor) is not the only threat. Refugees are also exploited by individuals.

People in Poland, Germany, UK and elsewhere have opened their homes refugees, most with the best of intentions. But unfortunately not all.

We found a social media post from a Ukrainian woman who fled to Düsseldorf in Germany. The man who offered her a room confiscated her identity documents and He demanded that she clean his house for free.

Then he started to sexually harass her as well. She rejected him and he threw her out on the street.

Irena Dawid-Tomczykkids, executive director of the Warsaw branch of the anti-trafficking NGO La Strada, said the story was all too familiar.

That kind of thing happens, war or no war, he says. But a flood of war-scarred women and children pouring out of Ukraine means cases of exploitation and abuse increase.

Teenage refugees are a particular concern. “We all know teenagers, right? They’re insecure. They want acceptance and recognition,” she explains.

“And if they are refugees who are away from home and their friends, they are even easier to exploit,” he continues.

“Girls may love the attention older men give them. Or they’ll be introduced to a nice girl their own age who has cool clothes and invites them to parties. That’s how it starts. Don’t forget, it’s not just men They are pimps, traffickers and abusers.”

the risk online

The factors that drive Ukrainian women to accept seemingly generous online offers to escape their difficulties are also multiplied in times of war.

Without revealing identities, Irena recounts case after case that La Strada Poland is working on: Ukrainian girls who they are offered plane tickets to Mexico, Turkey, United Arab Emirateswithout having met the men who invited them.

Ukrainian refugees receive flyers with help information.

“My colleagues were trying to persuade a 19-year-old girl not to go with her friend to a man’s house,” she says.

“She knows that her friend has been beaten. But the man calls her on her cell phone, says nice things and offers her gifts. If they insist on going, we ask the girls to at least register with the local authorities. If not they do, they have our phone number,” he explains.

“I hope they can call us if they need us.”

Governments across Europe have pledged solidarity with Ukraine.

And human rights groups want them to take better care of those who are running for their lives. They need protection.

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Source: Elcomercio