Shortly after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began last February, in one office in Vienna, alarms went off.

The OSCE Office of the Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings noticed an explosion in online searches for sexual content related to Ukrainian women and girls.

Depending on the country, corresponding searches for keywords such as "escort," "porn," or "rape" together with the word "Ukrainian" increased by 600%, while “Ukraine refugee porn” emerged as a trending search.

In Sweden, where solicitation of sexual services is prohibited, and accurate data on clients is available, 30 out of 38 men apprehended in March searched specifically for Ukrainian women in the first month of the war.

This is something OSCE deputy anti-trafficking coordinator Andrea Salvoni describes as a "toxic environment".