DATACHECK: protecting rights of sex workers in Ukraine in 2025

During the first half of 2025, 24 paralegals of CO “Legalife-Ukraine” provided legal assistance to sex workers (SWs) in 17 cities across Ukraine: Vinnytsia, Poltava, Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Mykolaiv, Kropyvnytskyi, Kherson, Zhytomyr, Lutsk, Kyiv, Rivne, Sumy, Lviv, Odesa, Chernivtsi, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv. The community used the DataCheck app to record and respond to human rights violations.

Our paralegals record complaints from sex workers (SWs) about violations of their rights and provide paralegal assistance if the SW needs it and agrees to it. Most often, SWs encounter: refusals to provide services in medical and social institutions, ignoring complaints and statements from SWs by law enforcement agencies, delays in the process of obtaining social benefits, and demands for charitable contributions in exchange for services, etc.

The proportion of SWs who face violations of their rights in wartime is growing every year. At the beginning of the war, this figure was 56%, in the second year of the war it was 62%, and finally, in the third year of the war, it reached 68%. Almost half of those we surveyed admit that the war and its consequences have negatively affected their ability to defend their rights.

Compared to the first half of 2024, the number of complaints registered with ITC DATACHECK from the sex worker community of Ukraine about violations of their rights has almost doubled, and the number of complaints resolved by paralegals has almost tripled.

In total, between January and June 2025, the network of paralegals of CO "LEGALIFE-UKRAINE" recorded 1,033 complaints from the sex worker community about violations of their rights in DataCheck. Of these, 667 complaints required paralegal assistance and were resolved by paralegals, while another 13 appeals were referred to a lawyers.

In addition, 68 representatives of sex workers community received 62 services for the restoration of lost documents and 7 transportation services to receive social and legal assistance.

PROBLEMS REPORTED BY SEX WORKERS OF UKRAINE IN 2025

Most often, we were approached by women who found themselves in difficult life situations, for example:

• police officers demanding money and forcing them to draw up/sign illegal reports, conducting illegal searches;
• the police using physical and psychological violence against SWs (moral humiliation, insults, coercion to cooperate, coercion to have sex, rape);
• SWs experiencing violence;
• SWs suffer from stigma and discrimination;
• attempts are made to take away SWs’ children/deprive them of their parental rights, citing their type of activity;
• SWs are denied medical or social services, citing their type of activity;
• SWs are denied employment, education, or are dismissed from work, citing their involvement in sex work;
• SWs need help in obtaining a passport, registering, signing a declaration with a family doctor, etc.

Text – team of CO “Legalife-Ukraine”

We are grateful to our partners for supporting sex workers in Ukraine: Aidsfonds, Global Fund for Women, SWAN, NSWP, 100% LIFE Charitable Organisation, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.