The Law of Ukraine “On Combating Trafficking in Human Beings” defines the concept of human trafficking, in particular, paragraph 15 of part one of Article 1, namely Trafficking in human beings is the execution of an illegal transaction involving a person, as well as recruitment, transfer, harbouring, transfer or receipt of a person committed for the purpose of exploitation, including sexual exploitation, with the use of deception, fraud, blackmail, vulnerable state of a person or with the use or threat of violence, abuse of office or material or other dependence on another person, which are recognised as a crime under the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
Exploiters make a profit by controlling and exploiting other people. This problem can affect anyone, regardless of age, gender, education or social status. Exploitation can take place both inside and outside the country.
Today in Ukraine there is a tendency to increase the number of Ukrainians who go abroad to work. Taking advantage of the attractiveness of work abroad, fraudsters use hundreds of different ways to deceive honest people: from recommendations to pay for a consultation, to prepare documents or send them to an employer, to getting into labour slavery.
Human trafficking can take many forms:
– labour exploitation
– forced begging;
– forced involvement in criminal activity and armed conflict;
– trafficking for the purpose of organ removal, forced surrogacy, etc.
Signs that a person is in a situation of human trafficking
– a passport or other documents have been taken away;
– deprived of free movement and communication with family members;
– Threatened, beaten or raped, mocked or subjected to psychological pressure;
– Forced to do work they did not want to do, using physical or psychological violence;
– forced to work off fictitious debts;
– there was no possibility to leave the job at will;
– forced to work overtime;
– used against their will in an armed conflict.
Do you have doubts about the job you are offered and/or have you become a victim of forced labour? Get a free and confidential consultation:
– Government hotline for combating human trafficking tel.: 1547
– National hotline for the prevention of domestic violence, human trafficking and gender discrimination (La Strada Ukraine)
– tel: 116 123 (from mobile)
– tel: 0 800 500 335 (from mobile or landline)
– National hotline for combating human trafficking and counselling migrants
– tel: 527 (from mobile)
– tel: 0 800 505 501 (from mobile or landline)
Department for Labour, Audit and Social and Labour Relations
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