The Limited Impact of the Law
The Struggle against Human Trafficking in Russia and Ukraine
Alexandra Orlova, Sasha Baglay
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Since the 1990s, Russia and Ukraine have been confronted with trafficking of women and children for commercial sexual exploitation. While Ukraine made human trafficking a criminal offence in 1998, Russia reacted only after international pressure. Furthermore, the Ukrainian Criminal Code is more in line with the stipulations contained in the U.N. Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (the Palermo Protocol). However, criminal law in Russia and Ukraine, both signatories of the protocol, still assigns too great a role to the victim’s consent and too small of a role to the victim’s exploitation in a given moment of helplessness.
(Osteuropa 6/2006, pp. 169–191)