Kosovo UN troops 'fuel sex trade'

The presence of peacekeepers in Kosovo is fuelling the sexual exploitation of women and encouraging trafficking, according to Amnesty International. It claims UN and Nato troops in the region are using the trafficked women and girls for sex and some have been involved in trafficking itself.

Amnesty says girls as young as 11 from eastern European countries are being sold into the sex slavery.

Amnesty's report, entitled "So does that mean I have rights? Protecting the human rights of women and girls trafficked for forced prostitution in Kosovo" was published on Thursday.

It is based on interviews with women and girls who have been trafficked from countries such as Moldova, Bulgaria and the Ukraine to service Kosovo's sex industry.

They are said to have been moved illegally across borders and sold in "trading houses" where they are sometimes drugged and "broken in" before being sold from one trafficker to another for prices ranging from 50 to 3,500 euros ($60 - 4,200).

The report includes harrowing testimonies of abduction, deprivation of liberty and denial of freedom of movement, torture and ill-treatment, including psychological threats, beatings and rape.

Instead of getting a proper job the women and girls find themselves trapped, enslaved, forced into prostitution.

It says that after 40,000 Kfor troops and hundreds of Unmik personnel were sent to Kosovo in 1999, a "small-scale local market for prostitution was transformed into a large-scale industry based on trafficking run by organised criminal networks".

The number of places in Kosovo where trafficked women and girls may be exploited, such as nightclubs, bars, restaurants, hotels and cafes, has increased from 18 in 1999 to more than 200 in 2003.

The report claims international personnel make up about 20% of the people using trafficked women and girls even though its members comprise only 2% of Kosovo's population.

"Women and girls as young as 11 are being sold into sexual slavery in Kosovo and international peacekeepers are not only failing to stop it they are actively fuelling this despicable trade by themselves paying for sex from trafficked women.

"It is time for countries to stop treating trafficking as a form of 'illegal migration' and see it as a particularly vicious form of human rights abuse."

One woman told Amnesty International: "I was forced by the boss to serve international soldiers and police officers... I never had a chance of running away and leaving that miserable life, because I was observed every moment by a woman."

Another told how German soldiers were instructed by their superiors not to go with prostitutes, but went anyway.

"They told the pimp, that if someone would be coming, he should alert them," she said. "After a while the pimp employed a guardian."

Amnesty says that despite some positive measures by the authorities to combat trafficking, the women and girls are often still treated as criminals - prosecuted for being unlawfully in Kosovo, or charged with prostitution.

Amnesty International is calling on the Kosovo authorities, including Unmik, to:

implement measures to end the trafficking of women and girls to, from and within Kosovo for forced prostitution ensure that measures are taken to protect the victims of trafficking ensure that those trafficked have a right to redress and reparation for the human rights abuses they have suffered Amnesty says Unmik's own figures show that by the end of 2003, 10 of their police officers had been dismissed or repatriated in connection with allegations related to trafficking.

In the year and half to July 2003 some 22-27 KFOR troops were suspected of offences relating to trafficking, the report says.

However, Kfor troops and UN personnel are immune from prosecution in Kosovo and those who have been dismissed relating to such offences have escaped any criminal proceedings in their home countries.

Ms Allen added: "The international community in Kosovo is now adding insult to injury by securing immunity from prosecution for its personnel and apparently hushing up their shameful part in the abuse of trafficked women and girls."

The organisation called on the UN and Nato to implement measures to ensure that any personnel suspected of criminal offences associated with trafficking are brought to justice.

>>>Did you ever wonder about that? Did you ever talk to or try to date a muslim female a get a bunch of dirty looks from every one of your muslim friends? Even though you maybe their friend, you are first an infidel.

I'm going to assume you hit the reply button for the wrong post.

When I think about it, I cannot think of any Muslim women from college period. Not that I did not see any around, it's just that I did not see them in any of the normal social settings. I guess that goes to reinforce the point you're trying to make.

The one exception would be a Turkish female, who was dating a Latino, come to think of it. A lot of Turkish Muslims tend to be pretty moderate/secular.

We used to own an internet cafe here in sweden and had many teenage customers that were muslim, both male and female. We even had a few working for us. From talking to the girls I got the impression that it was common for muslim girls to date christian guys (as in they didn't care for the religion as long as the guy was good looking) but it was all done in secret. As long as the family didn't find out it was fine. The problems only arises when the relationship gets serious and the girls "come out" from the secrecy. That's when you get the "honor" crimes from males in the family and society who have to punish the girl for having a relationship with a non-muslim. That's the way it is in Sweden as least, can't speak for the rest of the world.

I do not disagree with you as I have never been to Albania. However, please answer my question. Did you see muslim females dating non-muslim males or was it just the muslim males dating non-muslim females?

I have spent extensive amounts of time in Albania as well as the Albnaian-populated areas of Macedonia and Kosovo. Interfaith dating and marriage is common. And as Gerald posted earlier, you cannot tell who is what by the names. I had an Albanian translator who was Muslim with a Greek first name, Italian sounding last name, and a Christian boyfriend.

And anyone who has been to Tirana knows you sure cannot tell religion by the way the young women dress--what little of it they wear! I am personally acquainted with three Americans who got married to Muslim Albanian women--to the great acclaim of their families & friends. You cannot take experiences with religious attitudes from elsewhere and extrapolate into Albania--it is different.

Christan girls are being abducted from eastern european countries (Moldova, Bulgaria and the Ukraine) and are being to forced to work in the sex industries in mostly Muslim countries (Kosovo and Albania). The main customers are UN personnel.

Be careful about attaching religious labels to this behavior. The abductors from those Christian areas are mostly also Christian and the UN customers are primarily Christian. Plus as reported in the actual Amnesty International document found here , the trafficking mostly comes thru Serbia--another Christian country:

"Women are trafficked into Kosovo predominantly from Moldova, Bulgaria and Ukraine, the majority of them via Serbia."

These people are simply criminals--to include the so called Christians. More from the report:

Trafficking routes "That night two Serbian men came there and took two other girls and me away. All of us entered [Yugoslavia] illegally firstly by car, and then crossing a river on foot, until we met two other men who were waiting for us. These men took us to a house to spend the night, and the next day somebody else took us to a different house. I do not know the name of the city where we were staying. It was a woman that took us away this time."(59)

More than half (52 per cent) of women who come to Kosovo are trafficked via Serbia, with 22 per cent coming via Macedonia.(60) Women are also trafficked into Kosovo from Albania. According to the UNMIK Border Police, around 10 women a week are trafficked through Prishtinë/Priština airport, all of whom have apparently lawful contracts of employment.(61)

Serbia's geographical location, a decade of war and sanctions and the flourishing of organized crime(62) has made Serbia a central hub in the trafficking of women from central and eastern Europe into Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania and onward into western Europe via Italy or Greece.

Sold "just like a cloth" Women are taken, usually in small groups, to "trading houses" in hotels and private apartments around Belgrade, Panèevo and Novi Sad, and also in Montenegro. There they are paraded in front of potential buyers, often being forced to strip before being sold to their new "owner". "First they would put us to get undressed, and to be only in underwear, to look at us and see how we are looking. If you are looking OK, and they [like you], they will buy you. We were like a rag, just like a cloth."(63)

"They put us in a line, standing up, and then they sit in an armchair and look at us, choosing one of us." "You will not know who bought you. They will just come and tell you that you must get ready because you [have to] leave."(64)

A journalist who visited a "trading house" near Belgrade confirmed these reports. He also observed a man bidding for a woman while talking to the purchaser via mobile phone. (65

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