Wednesday, November 14, 20018

U.N. police working to break up Kosovo prostitution rings, assist victims

By Rick Scavetta, Kosovo bureau

PRISTINA, Kosovo — Fueled by international cash and supplied with bodies by a lucrative sex-slave market from Eastern Europe, prostitution continues to run rampant in Kosovo.

Against heavy odds, United Nations police are working to break prostitution rings and return the victims of sex trafficking to their homelands.

Formed in September 2000, the Trafficking and Prostitution Investigation Unit has 22 investigators assigned in teams to Kosovo’s five peacekeeping sectors, according to Maggie Bryant, the unit’s chief officer.

Some women brought into Kosovo have accepted prostitution over going home empty-handed and with little prospects.

Fewer than 10 percent of the women the unit finds are actually victims, Bryant said.

"There’s a lot of happily working hookers in Kosovo," Bryant said. "It’s the ones forced into prostitution that we are looking for."

Still, prostitution and sex-slave trafficking are a major part of organized crime in Kosovo, U.N. police spokesman Barry Fletcher said.

"It’s difficult to evaluate just how big it is," Fletcher said. "We don’t have any way to compare with the way it was before the war."

Tougher than that is convincing the local population that there are problems with prostitution in Kosovo.

"Prostitution is acceptable in the local culture. It’s distasteful, but accepted. That’s why so many prostitutes work out of coffee bars," Fletcher said.

In January, the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo — UNMIK — created laws to prosecute and punish traffickers and to assist their victims.

Anyone convicted of trafficking faces two to 12 years in prison, 15 years if the victim is under age 18. Those caught soliciting sex from a trafficking victim face up to five years imprisonment and up to 10 years if the victim is younger than 18.

Under former Yugoslav laws, prostitution was a minor crime. No laws specifically addressed sex trafficking, so at first U.N. police had to charge perpetrators with rape or false imprisonment.

"There wasn’t a law, so UNMIK created one," Fletcher said. "The law gave us a heavy-duty tool."

It also allows police, for the first time in Kosovo, to charge the johns with a serious crime, "which is an enormous change for the local culture," Fletcher said.

In separate arrests in Pristina in the last two weeks, U.N. police charged an Albanian Kosovar and a Hungarian woman for their part in prostitution rings in Kosovo’s capital city.

Last week in Vitina, U.N. police arrested two Romanian women after an investigation revealed their involvement in organized prostitution.

In its first six months following the enactment of the U.N. laws, the unit helped repatriate 115 women held against their will in Kosovo.

"That number has gone up considerably. We’re probably up to 175 now," Bryant said.

Last month, a 16-year-old girl escaped her captors and slept in a ditch overnight.

The next morning, she tracked down U.N. police who helped her get back to Romania, where she had been abducted off the streets. She was covered with cigarette burns, Bryant said.

A 28-year-old Ukrainian thought she was going to Greece to work as a massage therapist. But once in Kosovo she learned otherwise, and while she was being driven to a forced life as a prostitute, she jumped from a moving car and flagged down a Greek KFOR patrol, Bryant said.

"Those two found us," Bryant said. "That was just luck."

Bryant, a police officer from Peel Regional Police outside Toronto, Canada, arrived in Kosovo in May and admits she had a lot to learn about the Eastern European countries where the women come from.

The women are from poor backgrounds in former Soviet countries such as Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Russia. The majority range in age from 18 to 24 years, but some are as young as 13.

Lured by promises of work in other countries, many leave home voluntarily. Others are abducted from street corners or bus stations. Most have no idea they are going to Kosovo to work as prostitutes.

Criminals in Serbia organize markets to sell the women to buyers from Kosovo. A young girl can cost from 1,500 to 5,000 German marks (about $700 to $2,350). The buyer considers that a debt the woman must work off.

While en route to their new location, women report being raped and beaten. Threats against their families are a common tactic to control them.

Much of Kosovo is dangerous territory for Serbs, who deliver most of the women to Albanians, but not when it comes to sex-slave trafficking. Then, political and ethnic lines are blurred.

"There’s no hassle between Serbs and Albanians when it comes to money," Bryant said.

Once in Kosovo, the women work in seemingly legitimate bars and cafes. A customer can go into a café, order a beer for 100 marks and then get the waitress as well, Bryant said.

"If they buy three beers, they may have the girl for the whole night," Bryant said.

Few of the prostitutes get enough to eat and they rarely get medical attention, Bryant said. Not only do the women face the hazards of selling their bodies, they could find themselves under arrest.

When KFOR soldiers or U.N police find a prostitute with false documents or one who has entered the country illegally, the women are often charged and put through the local court system.

This is a critical point for a chance to return the woman to her homeland, Bryant said.

If convicted, the women could serve up to a month in a detention center, which makes them no longer eligible for repatriation through the International Organization for Migration.

"It’s essential that when KFOR comes across these girls, they let us know first," Bryant said.

Some in Kosovo point a finger at foreigners for fueling the sex trade. About 40 percent of clients are not local Kosovars, according to an IOM official who interviews freed prostitutes.

Several international workers frequent bars and nightclubs where prostitutes work, and some have paid for sexual services, U.N official Luiz Carlos da Costa wrote in a memo to U.N. personnel earlier this year. He reminded U.N. workers of harsh consequences should they be caught having sex with trafficked victim.

Four months ago, two U.S. police officers were sent home after one got involved with an alleged prostitute and another knew about the relationship but failed to report it, Fletcher said.

"But it was not a trafficking case; it was misconduct," Fletcher said.

While many in Kosovo say the international community frequents brothels, Bryant said most clients are actually Kosovars, many who have extra money to spend thanks to jobs supporting U.N or NATO forces.

"It’s the locals we’re finding in the bars," Bryant said. "Every now and then, we come across internationals."

Bryant said the toughest challenge U.N. police face is making contact with the women. Often, the women speak only Serbo-Croation or their native Slavic tongue. The United Nations lacks enough officers who speak Slavic languages, Bryant said.

"They will not speak through an interpreter," Bryant said. "We need more officers who speak their language. It gives the women a comfort zone."

Another problem is that the U.N. police have no funding for surveillance vehicles and have had to resort to borrowing local cars or paying for unmarked cars from their own pockets, Bryant said.

"It’s really hard to track someone [while using] a white U.N. vehicle," Bryant said.

Back to November stories
Page Two news roundup
Stories from October, 2001
Stories from September, 2001
Stories from August, 2001
Stories from July, 2001
Stories from June, 2001
Stories from May, 2001
Stories from April, 2001
Stories from March, 2001
Stories from February,2001
Stories from January, 2001
Stories from December, 2000
Stories from November, 2000
Stories from October, 2000
Stories from August and September, 2000
Stories from June and July, 2000
Home