Human Trafficking and International Armed Conflict: Applying the Trafficking Lens to Sexual Violence, Forced Labour and Deportation in the Russian-Occupied Territories of Ukraine

Immediately after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation in February 2022, the international anti-trafficking community raised concerns about the Ukrainian refugees facing heightened risks of human trafficking, as evidenced by the documented links between conflict-induced mass displacement and exposure to exploitation. Yet, the same actors remained silent on possible trafficking in the areas under Russian control – even as evidence of systematic sexual violence employed by the Russian military against Ukrainian civilians soon emerged – arguably, due to the asymmetrical nature of the conflicts that shaped practitioner and academic understandings on intersections between trafficking, sexual violence and exploitation in war economies. Inadvertently, this tacit refusal to consider in-conflict trafficking in the Russo-Ukrainian war, coupled with the refugee-centred discourse, has reinforced allegations of widespread sex trafficking of Ukrainian women and children in host societies, concertedly disseminated by Russian officials and affiliated sources, and seeking, alongside reputational damage, to erase the crimes of the Russian occupational regime. Meanwhile, since 2014, the Ukrainian government has granted the status of trafficking victim to survivors of forced labour in illegal detention in the occupied territories – a practice reflecting the lack of dedicated mechanisms for war crime victims. Since 2022 it has become more widespread and extended to survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, forcible transfers and deportation. Against this backdrop of discursive contestation and practical uses of anti-trafficking frameworks, this article examines legal and practical challenges, prospects, and limitations of applying the human trafficking concept to violence against civilians in the context of inter-state war and occupation.