EU Concerned Ukrainian Refugee Children May Become Trafficking Victims

European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson has warned that refugee children fleeing the conflict in Ukraine could fall victim to traffickers disguised as helpers at border areas.

Earlier this week, Commissioner Johansson highlighted the ongoing concerns the EU has over the possibility of child refugees being victims of human trafficking as they flee Ukraine into European Union member-states.

“There is a huge risk of trafficking in vulnerable children,” Johansson said, noting that criminal elements may be disguised as volunteers or helpers offering accommodation to migrants in order to take advantage of them, the European Union-funded website InfoMigrants reports.

Johansson added that there have been a large number of unaccompanied children, including those born to surrogate mothers, who were at risk of being exploited or being abducted.

Shirin Tinnesand, refugee and migration coordinator at the NGO Wadi, said Ukrainian refugees “are at risk of being exposed to human trafficking, prostitution, organ donation. Only imagination sets the limits.” https://t.co/x6irARlUcV

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 11, 2022

The warning comes just weeks after Shirin Tinnesand, refugee and migration coordinator at Wadi, made similar warnings regarding women and children fleeing Ukraine.

The NGO worker claimed that video footage taken in the main railway station in the Polish city of Krakow had shown a man engaged in suspicious behaviour, offering free food and accommodation to Ukrainian women for a year if they boarded a “special bus”.

“They are at risk of being exposed to human trafficking, prostitution, organ donation. Only imagination sets the limits,” Tinnesand said of the refugees fleeing Ukraine.

“It is a fact that people-smugglers pretend to be volunteers who go to places where it is chaotic and where there is no clear organization, and the more people who come, the more inconspicuous it becomes, and [it is] easier for smugglers and criminal organizations to operate,” Tinnesand said.

There have been several reported cases of Ukrainian women being sexually abused or feeling threatened after arriving in an EU member-state since the start of the Russian invasion, including a 19-year-old who claimed a 49-year-old Polish man raped her after offering to help her on the Internet. The man was later arrested by Polish police.

In Germany, a Nigerian and an Iraqi were arrested after being accused of raping a Ukrainian teen girl aboard a hotel ship that had been converted into a migrant accommodation in Düsseldorf.

The African men were also said to have fled Ukraine as supposed refugees.

Ukrainian Teen Allegedly Raped by Nigerian and Iraqi Migrants in German Accommodationhttps://t.co/X6B5MnFTC7

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 16, 2022

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.