THE IMPLEMENTATION OF PALERMO PROTOCOL IN PREVENTING UKRAINIAN REFUGEES FROM SEXUAL TRAFFICKING

The Russia invasion on Ukraine has caused a lot of problems, one of those is Refugees. The invasion has received the widespread international attention, which makes the world know that there would be a massive evacuation, but running to other countries is not always a good option because human trafficking might happen since the refugees are happened to be women the possibility of the refugees to get into sexual trafficking industry is really high. Transnational organized crime has always been a thing because crime happens anywhere including across the state border, human trafficking is one of the biggest industries in TOC. Ukraine itself is one of the countries that supplies a lot of women to work into coercive prostitution.

This research is expected to discuss the ineffectiveness of Palermo protocol implementation in protecting refugees and preventing them to get into sexual trafficking industry and why it has been unsuccessful in combatting the trafficking issue among refugees, particularly Ukrainian refugees.

This research conducted using normative legal research methods. Normative legal research is a process to find a rule of law, legal principles, and legal doctrines to answer the legal problems being faced.

The result of this research has shown that there are ineffectiveness and lack of the implementation of Palermo protocol. First, the differences in defining the Human Trafficking between Palermo and, the countries, and the different area of trafficking, following with the inaccurate reporting issue that may lead to incorrect data. Secondly, the Palermo does not regulate about punishing the Perpetrators which cause the legal vacuum in criminal matters.

There are suggestions for each result. Firstly, the ineffectiveness of Palermo Protocol could be eliminated by the international community work together in defining Human Trafficking and the state members should follow the policy of Palermo, along with establishing cooperation with other countries, also the United Nations must provide stricter safeguards on reporting issues, and also provide sanctions to countries that provide false reports of human trafficking. Secondly, every country should have created their own regulation on dealing with Human Traffickers, following with the territorial principle that can punish the traffickers in any countries they committed crime.