La Strada Documentation Center

Rapid Assessment of Trafficking in Children for Labour and Sexual Exploitation in Ukraine

Document number
1226
Date
2003
Title
Rapid Assessment of Trafficking in Children for Labour and Sexual Exploitation in Ukraine
Author/publisher
International Labour Organization (ILO)
Availability
View/save PDF version of this document
Document type(s)
Research/Study/Analysis,
Keywords
Child Trafficking, Child Prostitution, Child Pornography, Best Interests Principle, Child Victims of Trafficking, Separated Migrant Children, Unaccompanied minors, Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Child protection systems,
Summary
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The collapse of the Soviet system led to a radical reconstruction of the social base of Ukrainian society as it faced the challenge of transition from a planned to a market economy. The nature of this social transformation – the scale, trends, depth and means by which change has occurred – is characteristic of the phenomenon known as social anomie, that is that existing social norms have disappeared but have not yet been replaced by new norms, or at least that people generally have not yet embraced such new norms. As a result of this social anomie, many of the social movements that have emerged in Ukrainian society in recent years are undesirable, even deviant. Trafficking in human beings, including children, figures prominently among these deviances, and is now not only transnational but global in scale. An analysis of cases brought to court indicates that trafficking in children in most cases is conducted for the purposes of illegal adoption, prostitution, the production of pornography or pornographic performances, or for organ transplant. It is worth noting that this analysis of individual criminal cases in most cases does not reflect the involvement of organized criminal groups in these activities, to some extent because corruption in the authorities dealing with such cases hinders their being brought to court. It is also worth noting that the problem of trafficking in children in Ukraine for forced labour, including begging, does not feature in legal accounts, suggesting that children forced to work and their parents do not report this to law enforcement bodies. Thus an analysis of legal practice does not give a full picture of trafficking in children. A survey of available research, media reports and on-line information indicates that until recently the issue of trafficking in children in Ukraine has not been widely investigated. There have been isolated media reports on cases of child trafficking, usually in the context of individual court cases. Trafficking in adults is somewhat better researched. […]
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