Trafficking can happen to anyone. Traffickers use increasingly clever schemes to trick even smart and educated people into going with them for a job that will never materialize. No one is immune from the threat unless they understand the risk and educate themselves about how to protect themselves.

Going abroad to work, study or travel is not safe without complete and accurate information. Don’t leave home without knowledge about relevant regulations and laws, places to get information, help and people to contact at your destination, and copies of your travel documents. Find out more by calling one of the hotlines listed here.

Trafficking happens not only abroad, but also within Ukraine. People can be tricked into accepting a job offer, but end up enslaved. Children in particular are moved to different cities and forced to beg on the street, vulnerable to their captors for food and shelter.

Trafficking is a criminal offense in Ukraine and many other countries, punishable with up to 15 years in jail. Since 2000, Ukraine has an especially dedicated law enforcement body working on the issue of trafficking.

Prostitution is only one of the many different ways traffickers exploit people. Trafficking in human beings is modern slavery, whether individuals are used for the purpose of prostitution, construction work, within the agricultural sector, in sweat shops, in child pornography or even as organ donors.

Trafficking is not just a problem for young women. Grown men and teenage boys are used for forced labour, old and young women as housekeepers. Children as young as three have been made to beg.

Many victims of trafficking have partial or completed university education and most are from urban areas. Accountants, nurses, teachers, pilots, engineers – they are people just like you.

Unfortunately, not only strangers are traffickers. A trusted friend, acquaintance, or family member, can tell you about a job offer that is really a trap to end up forced to work against your will. Many times they might not know themselves that they are working to recruit you for a trafficker. Always investigate any job offer, no matter how trusted the source.

Victims are physically confined, their travel or identity documents are taken away and they or their families are threatened if they do not cooperate. Women and girls forced to work as prostitutes are blackmailed by the threat that traffickers will tell their families. Trafficked children are dependent on their traffickers for food, shelter and other basic necessities. Traffickers also play on victims’ fears that authorities in the country will prosecute or deport them if they ask for help.

Victims of trafficking can receive help to recover from their experience and begin their lives again at home. IOM and over 30 partner Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) provide assistance including medical, psychological, legal as well as vocational trainings, and assistance to the families affected, among other services. In addition, there are two regional shelters in Ukraine, plus a specialized medical facility in Kyiv to offer victims of trafficking the care they need.