On July 14, Ukraine’s parliament voted 231-8 to advance a bill that would decriminalize the production and distribution of adult content between consenting adults. Three members abstained from the vote. Nothing has changed yet for Ukrainian creators, as it was just a first reading, but the vote itself is significant.
Under current Ukrainian law, producing adult content is a criminal offense. Fines can reach Hr 85,000 (approximately $1,800) and prison sentences can run up to seven years. The law is old and rooted in Soviet-era legislation that wasn’t actually designed to protect anyone. It was really a way for authorities to have leverage over people they wanted to pressure, and that leverage hasn’t disappeared. It’s just been redirected.
The Kyiv Independent has documented what enforcement actually looks like for the estimated 15,000 creators working in Ukraine’s adult content industry. Armed police burst through doors and pin creators to the floor before demanding signed confessions not to secure convictions but to extract bribes, which can range from $ 200 to $ 30,000 if the office thinks the creator can pay. Last year alone, prosecutors opened more than 1,400 cases under the criminal code’s pornography article, the highest number in four years. The cases are easy to open and easy to close, which makes them useful for boosting stats and side incomes.
One creator described a colleague being dragged from her home into a car by a police officer and accomplices and being given three days to pay or face “problems”. Another creator, who goes by Moon, received a tax bill for over $250,000 that she says doesn’t reflect her actual income. Ukrainian authorities don’t account for the fact that while OnlyFans distributes total subscriber payments to a creator’s account, models typically only take home about 20% after paying agencies, advertising managers, and support staff. Moon is now in a long legal battle to prove she paid the correct amount while penalties accumulate. She told the Kyiv Independent that another creator she knows took her own life after facing a debt she couldn’t pay.
She is one of many victims of the criminalization of adult content in Ukraine. It has become a system that funnels money from creators to corrupt officers, exposing women to extortion and violence. A law written ostensibly to protect public morality is now being used as an extortion mechanism. Decriminalization takes that tool away from the officers who are currently profiting from it.
The bill that passed first reading pairs decriminalization of consensual adult content with significantly increased penalties for child sexual abuse material. Prison terms could reach fifteen years when those crimes are committed by organized groups or people in positions of trust over children. That pairing is not incidental; it is why this version of the bill passed when an earlier effort failed in May. Reformers understood that the legislation needed to make the distinction between consenting adults and the exploitation of children explicit and enforceable, and pairing stronger CSAM penalties with decriminalization was the argument that actually moved votes.
The financial case has also been central to the reform effort. An MP named Yaroslav Zhelezniak, the bill’s leading political advocate, has documented that 5,000 Ukrainians earned $123 million on OnlyFans alone between 2020 and 2022. That income generated almost nothing in tax revenue because the creators couldn’t legally declare earnings from an illegal business. When the UK, where OnlyFans parent company is located, shared user data on Ukrainian users’ earnings in 2024, there was a wave of tax audits targeting creators for backdated taxes on income from work that was illegal. Creators have collectively paid an estimated $2.8 million in back taxes under that pressure, which experts believe represents only about 5 percent of total earnings.
Despite the overwhelming passage of the bill on the first reading, there is real opposition to the bill. Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said decriminalizing pornography would “turn Ukraine into Pornhub.” The margin of support is not wide enough to guarantee passage at the second reading, but creators in Ukraine are keeping a close eye on this bill.