Trans Sexworks, a Berlin-based organisation, has offered to help all normal and transgender Ukrainian refugees fleeing the conflict begin sex work in Germany immediately.
“We are now offering peer-counceling [sic] and support in Ukranian, Russian and English for all sex-workers fleeing the war in Ukraine,” the site announced on their Instagram page.
“We can help in navigating the support systems in Berlin, helping with organising appointments with specialists,” the announcement explained, “and how to start work in Germany.”
“We offer this support as fellow sex workers who have varying experiences of gender, race, sexuality and ability,” the transgender sex work organisation noted. “Feel free to say so, if you would specifically like to speak with someone who is BIPoC, LGBTQI+ or disabled.”
The opportunity for Ukrainian women to prostitute themselves in Western Europe comes as governments and charities are warning that women and children are likely to face sexual exploitation after fleeing Ukraine.
“I have seen numerous dodgy men standing on site for hours looking for victims,” a charity worker helping Ukrainians at the Medyka border crossing in Poland told HuffPost UK.
“You can tell by the distant look in their eyes, they won’t look at you, but they are scanning the crowds of refugees for victims,” he added, describing the human trafficking problem as rampant.
“The most alarming story from site that I have heard is that two men were caught by the Polish army and they had women in the back of their van,” he said.
Lauren Agnew, a human trafficking policy expert for the charity CARE, told the Daily Mail that the war will create “a vulnerable domino effect across Europe and refugees are at an increasingly high risk of exploitation,” and that “the countries the refugees are fleeing into are hotspots for criminal gangs and they will see these people as a rich source for them to be exploited.”
Specifically in Germany, the local Berlin government had to warn Ukrainian refugees not to accept offers of money or housing by any men lurking at the central train station, in case they will be forced into prostitution or become victims of other forms of human trafficking.
Ironically, Reduxx, an online feminist and pro-child safeguarding news outlet highlighted that Trans Sexworks is in fact funded by the German government itself, as part of the Federal Ministry for the Family, Seniors, Women and Youth’s “model projects.”
The funds are meant to go to schemes that protect democracy, support diversity, and stop right-wing extremism.
Millions of war refugees have poured into Poland and Western Europe since Russia launched what it calls a “special military operation” against Ukraine last month.
