The government slightly increased anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts. Article 149 of the criminal code criminalized sex trafficking and labor trafficking and prescribed penalties of three to eight years’ imprisonment, which were sufficiently stringent and, with respect to sex trafficking, commensurate with those prescribed for other grave crimes, such as rape. The law defined trafficking broadly to include illegal adoption without the purpose of exploitation.
Law enforcement capacity remained affected by other critical wartime policing needs in government-controlled areas or lack of access to occupied territory. An international organization reported Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine significantly and adversely affected the court system, delaying judicial proceedings. Law enforcement only operated in areas that remained under government control, but not in territories occupied by Russia’s forces. Law enforcement investigated 142 new trafficking cases – 44 for sex trafficking, 87 for labor trafficking, including 32 for forced criminality, and 11 for unspecified forms of trafficking – in 2023, compared with 70 investigations in 2022 and 222 in 2021. In addition, the government continued investigating 115 cases. The government prosecuted 126 suspected traffickers – 52 for sex trafficking, 74 for labor trafficking, including 11 for forced criminality – in 2023, an increase compared with 70 prosecutions in 2022 and 101 in 2021. The government investigated and prosecuted additional cases as “adoption for commercial purposes” and “use in the pornography business” which are considered human trafficking under Ukrainian law, Article 149. The government convicted 35 traffickers in 2023, compared with 18 in 2022 and 24 in 2021. Of the 35 convicted traffickers sentenced in 2023, only eight (23 percent) received prison sentences (17 percent in 2022). Twenty traffickers received suspended sentences, three received fines, and four convicted traffickers did not yet receive a sentence. Observers reported many judges underestimated the severity of trafficking crimes and continued to hold entrenched stereotypes about what constituted trafficking in persons, while others engaged in corrupt practices. These lenient sentences weakened deterrence, did not adequately reflect the nature of the crime, created safety concerns, and undercut broader efforts to fight trafficking.
Corruption, particularly in the police and judiciary, and official complicity in trafficking crimes remained significant concerns inhibiting law enforcement action. Although the government continued to report investigations and prosecutions of officials allegedly complicit in trafficking, for the seventh consecutive year, the government did not convict any complicit officials, further exacerbating impunity for trafficking crimes. In 2023, the Lviv prosecutor’s office prosecuted a government official for alleged sex trafficking in France; the Office of the Prosecutor General (OPG) investigated a military commander for alleged forced labor; Kyiv city police investigated a former deputy police chief and police officer for alleged sex trafficking; and prosecutors indicted two former police officers for labor trafficking. The government reported multiple prosecutions involving complicit officials in trafficking crimes initiated in previous years remained ongoing.
The National Police of Ukraine (NPU) expanded its international and national partnerships, despite also assuming more national security tasks; and in April 2023, the Migration Police (MIPOL) established a dedicated unit on transnational investigations and international cooperation, including human trafficking. The NPU and MIPOL cooperated extensively with foreign counterparts, including Norway, Lithuania, and Türkiye, to exchange information for investigations. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, MIPOL and the NPU investigated trafficking cases among civilians, while the Security Service of Ukraine investigated war crimes, including those with a trafficking nexus. Authorities cooperated extensively with foreign governments on multiple transnational investigations including with Czechia and Germany, joint action days with EUROPOL, including against online criminal activity, extradition requests with Georgia and Poland, and legal assistance. The joint action days specifically focused on online criminal activity and recruitment and identifying Ukrainian and People’s Republic of China (PRC)-national trafficking victims, including among refugees in European countries. In September, Ukraine and Poland signed a new agreement on information sharing between authorities, including on human trafficking cases.
There continued to be widespread turnover in many government institutions, including in the ranks of the NPU and judiciary. As of December 2023, the government reported more than 3,500 judicial vacancies; these vacancies exacerbated delays in court cases, though the government took steps to address the shortage by reforming its judge selection process and resumed the functioning of the body responsible for selection of judicial candidates in 2023. Courts were critically understaffed, and judges did not specialize in trafficking cases. The impacts of the full-scale invasion, including power outages and disruption to Internet connectivity, delayed court proceedings. Furthermore, the criminal code required all victims of crime, including trafficking victims, to be present in court for preliminary court hearings; this resulted in more than 80 trafficking cases stalling in the courts, many of which involved victims displaced because of the full-scale invasion. In 2023, OPG established a specialized unit consisting of five prosecutors focused solely on prosecuting human trafficking cases and convened regional prosecutors to analyze more than 60 trafficking cases. The government, with donor funding and international partners, trained law enforcement, civil servants, prosecutors, legal aid providers, and other officials on investigative techniques, victim identification, child sex trafficking, trauma-informed approaches, legal aid for victims, prevention, cybercrime, and the heightened risks of trafficking after the full-scale invasion. All new police recruits received trafficking training. However, observers assessed MIPOL staff and NPU investigators were not sufficiently trained on trafficking.
from 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report – U.S. Department of State
2024 Trafficking in Persons Report – United States Department of State
