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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
World
Rosaleen Fenton

Ukrainian refugee bombarded with creepy messages from men after looking for UK home

A refugee trying to find a host in the UK after escaping the war in Ukraine has told how she was bombarded with creepy messages from men.

Julia Skubenko, 30, shared a post on a Facebook group begging Brits to help her find a host in the UK - but received a slew of sleaze instead.

Sharing a photo of herself to accompany her heartbreaking post, she told the group's thousands of members that she never envisaged that she'd be "forced to move to England.... [but] I have to start over."

Desperate to escape Russian troops after they invaded her homeland, the businesswoman shared her mobile number and a link to her social media profiles.

Julia ran a successful cleaning business in Kyiv, after moving to the capital city from a poor village, and assured hosts she would 'get on her feet' as quickly as possible.

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Julia has bravely spoken out (Facebook)

And she told hosts how she enjoys horse riding, dancing and reading - in a bid to find a sponsor with similar interests.

But alongside the kind offers of genuine help, she received a slew of creepy messages from single men offering her a room, with some asking for them to get married.

After the war started, there was such a spike in online searches for "Ukrainian women and sex" that it alerted security agencies.

She told the Daily Mail that she rebuffed one man by telling him she only wanted to live in a house with women living there - and he made his intentions disturbingly clear, replying: 'Too bad, we could have started a family.'

The 30-year-old was bombarded with creepy messages (Facebook)

Another man claimed to own an oil company and promised he would employ her as an 'assistant'.

The 30-year-old told how she struggled to believe that these men were 'writing out of compassion'.

She said: "I'm worried about the girls from my country."

It comes as experts have warned that the government's visa scheme could become Tinder for sex traffickers.

A senior council worker revealed that more than one in four of the 40 matches passed from the Home Office are between men aged over 50 and women in their twenties or early thirties.

One volunteer at the border told how he received a phone call ordering "a female Ukrainian and a 12-year-old boy". Others have been asking for babies to adopt.

"The way I see it, this is a war on women and children," says Tatiana Kotlyarenko, an adviser on anti-trafficking, "and we may be sending them from one hell to another."

"The vast majority of those leaving Ukraine are women and girls and the vast majority of those trafficked are women and girls so you can see the math is not good," expert Val Richey, a special representative for combating human trafficking at the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe., warned the Sunday Times.

"It's a toxic cocktail of risk."

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