The European Union is now reporting that 5.4 million people have arrived there since fighting began in Ukraine. The vast majority of those are women and children who are most at risk.
Luckily the European union’s law enforcement agency has begun a major project to prevent human trafficking. Law enforcement agencies from 20 countries gathered for what they called a human trafficking hackathon last week.
In an article from Ars Technica by Ashley Belanger, she reports:
By bringing together law enforcement authorities from 20 countries to aid in their investigations, the hackathon targeted criminal networks using social platforms and websites to map out the online criminal landscape of human trafficking across Europe. In particular, Europol noted in its report, “investigators targeted human traffickers attempting to lure Ukrainian refugees.”
“The Internet and human trafficking are interlinked,” Europol stated in its report, which identified 30 online platforms “related to vulnerable Ukrainian refugees,” 10 specifically targeting refugees for human trafficking.
Europol identified 80 persons/usernames (with 30 possibly exploiting Ukrainian refugees), 11 suspected human traffickers (five believed to be targeting Ukrainian refugees), and 45 possible victims, 25 of which were Ukrainian.
Countries involved in the hackathon were Austria, Albania, Belgium, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine. Online platforms probed during the hackathon included “a wide range of websites” and “social media, dating platforms, advertising and aid platforms, forums and messaging applications.”
You can read about next steps in Ashley’s article here.
Stock photo courtesy of SOPA Images/Contributor|LightRocket
