Prostitution in Ukraine is illegal but widespread and largely ignored by the government. Ukrainian women and children are subjected to forced sexual services and sex trafficking within the country and to other European, Central Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Ukraine's dissolution from the Soviet Union , saw the nation attempt to transition from a planned economy to a market economy.
According to the Ukrainian Institute of Social Studies in there were 50, women working as prostitutes with every sixth prostitute being a minor. Ukraine is now known to have a greater number of trafficking victims than any other Eastern European nation after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. According to multiple reports the Ukrainian sex-workers are the largest group of foreign women in Turkey involved into prostitution and the second largest group of foreign women involved into prostitution outside the US military bases in Republic of Korea.
The traffickers say they will work as dancers or in-store clerks. Once they arrive in their destination country, they are frequently trapped by pimps taking away their visas, or by owing the pimps money to be paid off with prostitution.
In Ukraine , children are often the victims of forced labor and other kind of sexual exploitations. Ukraine experiences between and cases of sexual children exploitation per year. HIV is contracted more frequently in people who do not use condoms during sex. Female sex workers have less access to medical services which makes prevention and treatment more difficult to acquire. By law prostitution is illegal in Ukraine.
Article in The Criminal Code of Ukraine addresses pimping and involvement in employment prostitution. Based on article , pimping of a minor below 18 years is a crime that is punishable by imprisonment of five to ten years.
