Human Trafficking Is Changing. Is the Response System Keeping Up with These Changes?

Online recruitment of children through social media and games, the exploitation of Ukrainians abroad, and new risks associated with the mass displacement of the population caused by the war mean that human trafficking is becoming increasingly difficult to detect and document. At the same time, the timely detection of the crime remains one of the main conditions for the effective protection of survivors and for bringing perpetrators to justice.

According to IOM, in 2025, 187 survivors of human trafficking received case management services, and overall, since 2000, comprehensive assistance has been provided to more than 20 thousand people. These figures once again confirm that the problem remains relevant and requires the continuous improvement of response mechanisms.

It was precisely these current challenges and ways to improve the effectiveness of public policy that were discussed by participants of the International Scientific and Practical Conference “State Policy in the Field of Countering Human Trafficking and Irregular Migration: Current Challenges for Ukraine and the World”, which took place on 5 June in Lviv. The event brought together representatives of state authorities, law enforcement agencies, international organizations, the academic community, and civil society.

A separate block of the discussion was devoted to the work of the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) — a system of cooperation among state authorities, law enforcement officers, social services, and civil society organizations in the field of countering human trafficking.

Representatives of the Counter–Trafficking NGO Coalition took an active part in this panel. The discussion was moderated by Olena Kalbus, Project Coordinator on Countering Human Trafficking at the NGO “Women’s Perspectives Center”. Expert input was also presented by Ihor Trydub, Co-Founder and Head of the NGO “Clean Sheet”, who focused on the psychological mechanisms of cyber grooming and the recruitment of children in online games — one of the new risks that is rapidly gaining relevance.

In the EU, more than 10,700 survivors were identified in 2023, of whom only 174 were Ukrainians. For comparison, in 2022 Ukrainians accounted for up to 30%. This indicates that preventive campaigns are working. The keynote address from civil society was delivered by Nataliia Kulikova, Head of the Counter–Trafficking NGO Coalition. In her speech, she emphasized that over the past fifteen years Ukraine has managed to build an effective system for identifying survivors, providing assistance, and ensuring interagency coordination. However, the full-scale war has significantly changed the nature of the threats and, consequently, the requirements for the response system.

One of the key messages of the speech was that today the greatest challenge is not only providing assistance after establishing survivor status, but also the timely detection of the crime of human trafficking itself. According to Nataliia Kulikova, member organizations of the Coalition regularly encounter situations where cases with clear signs of human trafficking are treated exclusively as incidents of fraud, labour violations, sexual violence, or the involvement of children in illegal activities. As a result, a person may receive certain assistance, but the crime itself remains undetected, while the perpetrators remain unpunished.