A farmer in Kharkiv Oblast forced migrants to work for food
The suspect was looking for people who found themselves in difficult life circumstances due to a full-scale invasion.
Law enforcement officers of the Kharkiv region exposed a woman who is suspected of trafficking in internally displaced persons. According to the investigation, this farmer lured people with promises of decent working conditions, and then forced them to live in a barn and work only for food. About this reported police of Kharkiv Region.
As the investigators established, the suspect was purposefully looking for people who were left homeless due to a full-scale invasion. She visited railway and bus stations, as well as markets in the Kharkiv region, where she looked for people in difficult life circumstances.
“People who were forced to leave their homes due to Russia’s military aggression and had no means of livelihood easily agreed to the attacker’s offers. She promised regular working hours, wages, decent living conditions and three meals a day. However, after arriving at the farm, people found themselves in conditions that did not meet even basic sanitary standards, and there was not enough food to meet minimum needs”, the police said.
During the searches, law enforcement officers found three victims: a 50-year-old woman and two men aged 59 and 56. Farmers reported suspicion of human trafficking under Part 2 of Art. 149 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. She faces from five to twelve years of imprisonment with the possibility of confiscation of property.
