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The ukrainian society faces the russian invasion and Europe has the challenge of welcoming the thousands of people fleeing war, who are mostly women. While these women live in an extreme situation, In Spain, the demand for Ukrainian prostitutes and pornography has skyrocketed.

Along these lines, recently the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has alerted to governments and citizens around the world in the face of the “large increases in online searches for ‘ukrainian porn‘ and ‘ukrainian escorts‘” since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24.

And something that started as a joke through a memehas resulted in searches for pornography and demands for prostitution that can end up leading to human trafficking for sexual exploitation.

It all starts with a meme

As the conflict broke out and the large wave of women fleeing Ukraine to save their lives began to appear in the media, memes invaded social networks and WhatsApp groups.

I join the challenge #AdoptAUkrainian pic.twitter.com/ZMsSLrFEok

— 𝗘𝗟 𝗠𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗔 🐺 (@FrankElMakina) September 21, 2020

“Sharing sexist or sexist memes or jokes also makes you sexist,” warned actor Joan Plazaola in an interview with EFEMINIST.

Aware of the need to focus on men and review their behavior, Plazaola is one of the men who have offered to stand up for raise awareness and warn young people, and not so young, that some everyday attitudes, such as sharing memes, jokes or images in which women are degraded, They are also sexist violence.

On the other hand, all these messages that are spread create a stereotype of Ukrainian women, in addition to objectifying them and sexualizing their vulnerable condition, which leads to an increase in searches for pornography in which they appear.

“Ukrainian porn”

In Spain, according to Google Trends data, searches that included the terms “for not” and “Ukrainian” They skyrocketed after the outbreak of the conflict, reaching their peak in the week of March 6 to 12, when the invasion received greater media coverage.

According to the consulting firm Thomson Reuters Special Services, global searches in multiple languages ​​and countries for explicit content have increased by 600% since the beginning of the humanitarian crisis.

In fact, already on March 14, the Spanish Violence Observatory warned that pornography consumption had skyrocketed and the most searched terms since February 24 were: “Ukrainian porn”, “Ukrainian teenager” and “Ukrainian girl”.

“Ukrainian whore”

Google searches nationwide ukrainian prostitutes They also multiplied with the outbreak of the conflict. Since then, although searches have decreased, they have not reached pre-invasion levels.

Data from Thomson Reuters Special Services indicates that online searches for the term “Ukrainian escorts” has increased by 200% globally.

From the OSCE they point out that these data “confirm the growing demand for sexual services” of women from the Eastern European country. A demand that this organization fears will “significantly encourage traffickers to recruit and exploit Ukrainian women on a large scale.”

Sociologist Lluís Ballester comments that the month-by-month balance of advertisements indicates a moderate increase. “The lawsuit against NGOs and the arrest of pimps or the release of the same women in prostitution situations in the streets and clubs, for now, do not provide sufficient data“.

Ballester points out that it will take time for the necessary information to arrive. “In addition, women from Eastern Europe tend to be in hidden prostitution situations (flats and website). Therefore, for now, only ad tracking data is useful.”

In any case, In Spain there have already been arrests of people who sought to force Ukrainian women into prostitution upon their arrival. To try to put an end to this problem, both Security Forces and Corps, NGOs and the Red Cross have launched specific devices.

“For the short time that the device has been in use, lreally It is a concern that we have. In fact, last night we had a case that we took to the Police,” says Patricia Peris, head of Women in Social Difficulty at the Red Cross in Valencia.

Trafficking and exploitation

Human trafficking networks, aware of the vulnerability of Ukrainian women, They are trying to take advantage of their situation to recruit refugees and exploit them.

“Unfortunately, this usually happens in any immigration process,” explains Teresa De Gasperis, specialist in Human Trafficking and Children at ACCEM. But she points out that Ukrainian people have always been among the first victims of mafias. That is to say, Human trafficking networks already operate on the ground and know how to do it.

Furthermore, the increase in demand is a reality that the mafias are going to take advantage of. “Prostitution is still a business“says Patricia Peris of the Red Cross. The person in charge of Women in Difficulty explains that when requesting these sexual services, The mafias are going to respond by transferring that offer.

OSCE Recommendations

To tackle the root of the problem and prevent Ukrainian refugee women from falling into human trafficking networks for sexual exploitation, The OSCE recommends that States:

• Establish programs designed to discourage demand for sexual servicesincluding of Ukrainian women and girls, including awareness-raising, education and employer codes of conduct.
• Implement campaigns digital awareness to inform refugees from Ukraine about the risks of trafficking and guidance on how to detect and report traffickers.
• Enforce the criminal laws related to the purchase of sex that fuels trafficking.
• Disable search results or search ads related to terms potentially linked to the exploitation of Ukrainian women and instead run awareness ads that deter potential buyers of sex involving Ukrainian women and girls.
• Identify platforms on-line with a high risk of featuring trafficked persons, such as sites advertising escort services, massage services, and dating sites, and control exploitation indicators, such as increases in advertisements for sexual services or pornographic websites related to Ukrainian women.

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