(ENGLISH / DEUTSCH)
[ Sullo stesso argomento - KOSOVO: LA NATO E L'ONU RESPONSABILI DEL
BOOM DELLA PROSTITUZIONE
(la Forza Internazionale favorisce la prostituzione / Amnesty accusa la
Nato e l’Onu di alimentare la prostituzione in Kosovo / L’incredibile
apatia dell’Europa rispetto alla prostituzione in Kosovo / Le basi Nato
e la schiavitù sessuale / DISPACCI ANSA sullo stesso tema)
vedi, in lingua italiana:
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/3525
ed anche, in generale su LA TRATTA DELLE BIANCHE NEI BALCANI, i link
indicati alla URL:
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2384 ]
*** Kosovo: Deutsche Soldaten bei Zwangsprostituierten ***
D.1 - ARD-Sendung HEUTE
D.2 - Soldatenleben - Schwere Vorwürfe gegen Soldaten der Bundeswehr
erhebt amnesty international (www.german-foreign-policy.com)
E.1 - LINKS
E.2 - GERMAN SOLDIERS - FORCED PROSTITUTION IN KOSOVO - AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL REPORT
E.3 - NATO tied to Kosovo sex trade
(www.chinaview.cn -- 2004-05-11)
E.4 - Nato force 'feeds Kosovo sex trade'
(Ian Traynor, The Guardian - UK - May 7, 2004)
E.5 - Kosovo UN troops 'fuel sex trade'
(news.bbc.co.uk, May 6, 2004)
E.6 - NATO tied to Kosovo sex trade
(Toronto Star, May 7, '04)
E.7 - Albanian gangs control violent vice networks
(The Times, July 17, 2004)
=== DEUTSCH.1 ===
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: monitor@ wdr.de
Gesendet: Dienstag, 28. September 2004 14:30
Betreff: [monitorliste] MONITOR am 30.09.2004, Sendezeit: 21.45 - 22.30
h, ARD
Für die MONITOR-Sendung am Donnerstag,
den 30. September 2004, die von 21.45 h - 22.30 h
im Ersten ausgestrahlt wird, planen wir folgende Themen:
Schein und Wirklichkeit der Nationalen: Die netten NPDler von nebenan
Billigflieger: Gefahr in der Luft?
Die 150.000-Job-Mär
LKW-Maut und kein Ende
Kosovo: Deutsche Soldaten bei Zwangsprostituierten
Die vollständigen Beiträge finden Sie ab Freitagnachmittag
(ca. 16.00 Uhr) im Video- und Textformat unter:
http://www.monitor.de
Besuchen Sie auch unser Forum:
http://www.wdr.de/tv/monitor/forum/
Wir wünschen Ihnen interessante Diskussionen!
Ihre MONITOR-Redaktion
=== D.2 ===
http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1085008606.php
20.05.2004
Soldatenleben
PRISTINA (Eigener Bericht) - Schwere Vorwürfe gegen Soldaten der
Bundeswehr erhebt amnesty international. Wie aus einem jüngst von
amnesty veröffentlichten Bericht hervorgeht, nehmen deutsche Soldaten
im Kosovo und in Mazedonien sexuelle Zwangsdienste von verschleppten
Frauen in Anspruch, die zu Prostitution gezwungen werden, darunter auch
Minderjährige. Frauenhilfsorganisationen kritisieren, dass sie mit
ihrer Forderung nach konsequenter Verfolgung und Sanktionierung der
deutschen Nutznießer der Zwangsprostitution vom Berliner
Verteidigungsministerium ,,immer wieder abgespeist" werden. Auch der
ehemalige deutsche UN-Verwalter im Kosovo, Michael Steiner, habe
während seiner Amtszeit keine Verbesserung der Lage der Frauen im
Kosovo durchgesetzt.
Wie amnesty in einem jüngst erschienenen Bericht schreibt, hat sich der
Kosovo seit dem Einmarsch der KFOR und der Installierung der
UN-Verwaltung in einen bedeutenden Umschlagplatz für den Menschenhandel
verwandelt.1) Während es in der südserbischen Provinz vor dem
NATO-Angriff auf Jugoslawien keine nennenswerte Prostitution gegeben
habe, seien schon bald nach dem Beginn der Besatzung die ersten
Bordelle mit Zwangsprostituierten in der Nähe von KFOR-Stützpunkten
errichtet worden, bestätigt Jan Digol, ein amnesty-Experte. In Prizren
sollen, so der amnesty-Bericht, deutsche Soldaten im Jahr 1999 zu den
ersten Kunden der verschleppten Frauen gehört haben. Einem
Fernsehbericht zufolge haben deutsche Soldaten regelmäßig
Kinderbordelle aufgesucht.2)
Keine Verbesserungen
Während der Amtszeit des deutschen UN-Verwalters Michael Steiner
(Februar 2002 bis Juli 2003) hat sich die Lage der gewaltsam
verschleppten Frauen im Kosovo nicht verbessert. Während die
UN-Verwaltung für Januar 2001 insgesamt 75 Gebäude nennt, in denen
Frauen zu Prostitution gezwungen wurden, werden für Ende 2003 schon 200
derartige Einrichtungen angegeben. Die Dunkelziffer ist, so Digol, um
ein Vielfaches höher. Während Steiner die Justizverwaltung des Kosovo
von Jugoslawien abgetrennt und damit massiv in das Justizsystem
eingegriffen hat3), hat er offenbar versäumt, einen wirksamen Opfer-
und Zeuginnenschutz für die Zwangsprostituierten durchzusetzen. Eine
effiziente Bekämpfung des Frauenhandels sei so kaum möglich, kritisiert
Isabella Stock von der Frauenhilfsorganisation medica mondiale im
Gespräch mit dieser Redaktion: Während Steiners Amtszeit gab es ,,keine
Veränderungen, die zur Verbesserung der Situation beigetragen hätten".
Keine Konsequenzen
Während die Berliner Regierung Kriege gegen islamisch geprägte Staaten
mit einem angeblichen Kampf für Frauenrechte legitimiert, nutzen
Bundeswehrsoldaten sexuelle Zwangsdienste von verschleppten Frauen,
ohne dass dies wirksam unterbunden würde. medica mondiale fordert das
Verteidigungsministerium seit Jahren auf, die deutschen Soldaten über
Frauenhandel umfassend zu informieren und Menschenrechtsverletzungen
konsequent zu verfolgen und zu ahnden. Vergeblich, wie Stock
kritisiert: ,,Wir werden immer wieder abgespeist."
,,Hervorragender Dienst"
Das Bundeskabinett hat unterdessen am gestrigen Mittwoch beschlossen,
das Mandat für den Kosovo-Einsatz der Bundeswehr zu verlängern. ,,Die
Soldaten leisten im Kosovo einen hervorragenden Dienst", erklärt der
deutsche Verteidigungsminister, ,,und es ist ihrer Professionalität und
Besonnenheit zu verdanken, dass die fragile Stabilität dort überhaupt
Bestand hat".4)
1) ,,So does it mean that we have the rights?" Protecting the human
rights of women and girls trafficked for forced prostitution in Kosovo;
amnesty international 06.05.2004
2) ARD-Weltspiegel 17.12.2000
3) s. dazu Berliner Beute
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1058051536.php%5d
4) s. auch Konsequenz des Krieges
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1080255602.php%5d
und Leitbild
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1080255601.php%5d
Informationen zur Deutschen Außenpolitik
© www.german-foreign-policy.com
=== ENGLISH.1 * LINKS===
*** AI INDEX: EUR 70/010/2004 6 May 2004
"So does it mean that we have the rights?" Protecting the human rights
of women and girls trafficked for forced prostitution in Kosovo
http://web.amnesty.org/library/print/ENGEUR700102004
*** AI INDEX: EUR 70/012/2004 6 May 2004
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE
Kosovo: Trafficked women and girls have human rights
http://web.amnesty.org/library/print/ENGEUR700122004
*** MORE:
A Canadian solution to a peacekeeping sex scandal
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/
20040527/COPEACE27/TPComment/TopStories
Sex Slave Recounts Her Ordeal (by Nidzara Ahmetasevic)
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/bcr3/bcr3_200303_415_3_eng.txt
Europe's cash and carry sex slaves (by Gaby Rado)
http://www.observer.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4641858,00.html
*** OLDER ARTICLES:
Sex slavery in the Balkans (english / italiano)
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2783
Albanian connection to the teenage sex slaves in London
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2584
MORE LINKS on Sex Slavery
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2384
=== E.2 ===
http://www.freenations.freeuk.com/news-2004-05-28.html
GERMAN SOLDIERS - FORCED PROSTITUTION IN KOSOVO
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT
Dateline 28th May 2004
INTRODUCTION: In this report from our German colleagues we
see a situation of gross sexual exploitation of innocent women in
Kosovo by German troops stationed there. The soldiers are
part of the disastrous UN "peace keeping" force which has
overseen some of the worst ethnic cleansing, murder and
religious bigotry of the Yugoslav war (as in Bosnia and
Croatia the main victims being Serbs). German troops were
severely criticised recently for standing aside and watching as
Albanian thugs torched Orthodox Churches and ethnically
cleansed and murdered Serbs in Kosovo. What we report here
is even worse than the (rightly criticised) activities of
American soldiers in Iraq. For here we have the blatant
sexual exploitation of innocent women, not the degradation
of criminal suspects. And yet do we hear of this from the BBC? Their
reporters do not even need to go to Kosovo - just down the road
to Amnesty headquarters in London. And yet the Amnesty
report the BBC chose to publicise is the one attacking the
United States troops in Iraq not the one exposing German
troops in Kosovo!
PRISTINA: Amnesty International has published a report strongly
condemning soldiers of the German Army in Kosovo. The report
states that German soldiers in Kosovo and Macedonia have
abducted women and under-age girls for sexual exploitation
and to force into prostitution. Women's support
organisations claim that despite their demands for the pursuit and
punishment of the German soldiers the Berlin Ministry of
Defence "always fobs them off". Even the former German UN
Head in Kosovo Michael Steiner was unable to improve the lot
of Kosovo's women during his period in office.
Amnesty claims that since the entry of KFOR troops and the installation
of the UN Administration Kosovo has been turned into a major
market place for the trade in human beings. (1) Before the
NATO attack on Yugoslavia there was no large scale
prostitution in Kosovo, immediately after the UN occupation
began there were established the first brothels using forced
prostitution near the KFOR camps, the Amnesty expert Jan Digol
confirmed. In Prizren, claims the Amnesty report, among the first
clients for the abducted women were German soldiers in 1999.
According to one television report German soldiers were
regular visitors at child brothels. (2)
During the term of office of the German UN Administrator Michael
Steiner (February 2002 to July 2003) the position of the
forcibly abducted Kosovo women did not improve. While the UN
Administraion for January 2001 identified a total of 75
buildings in which women were forced into prostitution by
the end of 2003 there were 200 such establishments. While Steiner
divorced the Administration of Justice in Kosovo from Yugoslavia
and therefore interfered greatly in the justice system he
omitted apparently to implement a system of protection for
victims and witnesses of forced prostitution. An effective
attack on the trade in women is therefore hardly possible
says Isabella Stock of the Women's Help Organisation Medica
Mondiale During Steiner's period in office there were "no
changes which would have contributed to an improvement in the
situation"
While the German Government justifies wars against Islamic States
partly on the grounds of fighting for the rights of women,
German soldiers are engaged in the sexual exploitation of
abducted women without any effective attempts to counteract
the scandal. Medica Mondiale has been demanding for years of
the German Defence Ministry that they educate their troops
and consistently follow up breaches of human rights. Stock
claims this was all in vain "We were always fobbed off"
The German Cabinet has just decided to extend the mandate for the
German Armed Services in Kosovo. "The soldiers are
performing an exceptional service" was the opinion of the
German Minister for Defence. "and it is thanks to their
professionalism and discretion that the fragile stability
has survived at all" (4)
1) ,,So does it mean that we have the rights?" Protecting the human
rights of women and girls trafficked for forced prostitution in
Kosovo; amnesty international 06.05.2004
2) ARD-Weltspiegel 17.12.2000
3) s. dazu Berliner Beute
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1058051536.php%5d
4) s. auch Konsequenz des Krieges
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1080255602.php%5d
und Leitbild
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1080255601.php%5d
=== E.3 ===
NATO tied to Kosovo sex trade.
www.chinaview.cn
2004-05-11 13:39:56
BEIJING, May 11, (Xinhuanet) -- A leading human
rights group says international workers and
peacekeepers in Kosovo are responsible for agrowing
trade in sex slaves that exploits girls as young as 11.
In a report released Monday, Amnesty International
accuses United Nations personnel and NATO-led
soldiers in the Serbian province of using the trafficked
women and girls for sex.
The report estimates that international military and civilian
peacekeepers, 2 per cent of Kosovo's population, make
up 20 per cent of the clients of women and girls trafficked
to the province.
The number of places in Kosovo where trafficked women
are believed to be working as sex slaves, such as nightclubs,
rose from 18 in 1999 to more than 200 in 2003.
The report says most of the women smuggled to Kosovo
are from Moldova, Bulgaria and Ukraine.
=== E.4 ===
Nato force 'feeds Kosovo sex trade'
Ian Traynor in Zagreb
Friday May 7, 2004
The Guardian, UK
Western troops, policemen, and civilians are largely to blame for the
rapid growth of the sex slavery industry in Kosovo over the past five
years, a mushrooming trade in which hundreds of women, many of them
under-age girls, are tortured, raped, abused and then criminalised,
Amnesty International said yesterday.
In a report on the rapid growth of sex-trafficking and forced
prostitution rackets since Nato troops and UN administrators took over
the Balkan province in 1999, Amnesty said Nato soldiers, UN police, and
western aid workers operated with near impunity in exploiting the
victims of the sex traffickers.
As a result of the influx of thousands of Nato-led peacekeepers,
"Kosovo soon became a major destination country for women trafficked
into forced prostitution. A small-scale local market for prostitution
was transformed into a large-scale industry based on trafficking,
predominantly run by criminal networks."
The international presence in Kosovo continues to generate 80% of the
income for the pimps, brothel-owners, and mafiosi who abduct local
girls or traffic women mainly from Moldova, Romania, Ukraine, and
Russia to Kosovo via Serbia, the report said, although the
international "client base" for the sex trade has fallen to 20% last
year from 80% four years ago.
Up to 2,000 women are estimated to have been coerced into sex slavery
in Kosovo, which had seen "an unprecedented escalation in trafficking"
in recent years. The number of premises in Kosovo listed by a special
UN police unit as being involved in the rackets has swollen from 18 in
1999 to 200 this year.
A few weeks ago the UN's department of peacekeeping in New York
acknowledged that "peacekeepers have come to be seen as part of the
problem in trafficking rather than the solution".
The sex slavery in Kosovo parallels similar phenomena next door in
Bosnia, where the arrival of thousands of Nato peacekeepers in 1995
fuelled a thriving forced prostitution industry.
International personnel in Kosovo enjoy immunity from prosecution
unless this is waived by the UN in New York for UN employees or by
national military chiefs for Nato-led troops.
One police officer last year and another the year before had their
immunity waived, enabling criminal prosecutions.
"Amnesty International has been unable to find any evidence of any
criminal proceedings related to trafficking against any military
personnel in their home countries," the 80-page report said.
The report said that US, French, German and Italian soldiers were known
to have been involved in the rackets.
Criticism of the international troops in Kosovo follows a recent
broader indictment of the Kosovo mission by the International Crisis
Group thinktank, which called for the mission to be overhauled.
Women were bought and sold for up to £2,000 and then kept in appalling
conditions as slaves by their "owners", Amnesty said. They were
routinely raped "as a means of control and coercion", beaten, held at
gunpoint, robbed, and kept in darkened rooms unable to go out.
Apart from women trafficked into Kosovo, there is a worsening problem
with girls abducted locally. A Kosovo support group working with
victims reported that a third of these locals were under 14, and 80%
were under 18.
The UN admission in March that its peacekeepers were part of the
problem was welcome, said Amnesty
=== E.5 ===
(see comments at:
http://disc.server.com/
discussion.cgi?disc=217548;article=3707;title=Slobodan%20Milosevic%20Tri
al
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3686173.stm
Thu May 6, 2004
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 may be involved in the trafficking itself.
Amnesty says girls as young as 11 from eastern European countries are
being sold into the sex slavery.
The UN and Nato forces said they had not yet seen the report to comment.
Trading houses
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.
The report condemns the role of the international peacekeepers.
Slavery
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.
Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said:
"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."
Criminals
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 K-For 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.
=== E.6 ===
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/
Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1083881410545&call_pageid=968332188492&col=9
68793972154
Toronto Star
May 7, 2004. 01:00 AM
NATO tied to Kosovo sex trade
Amnesty also points finger at U.N. peacekeepers
Exploit women and girls as young as 11, report says
SANDRO CONTENTA
EUROPEAN BUREAU
LONDON-International workers and peacekeepers in Kosovo are responsible
for a growing trade in sex slaves that exploits girls as young as 11, a
leading human rights group says.
In a report released yesterday, Amnesty International accuses United
Nations personnel and NATO-led soldiers in the Serbian province of
using the trafficked women and girls for sex.
The report estimates that international military and civilian
peacekeepers - 2 per cent of Kosovo's population - make up 20 per cent
of the clients of women and girls trafficked to the province.
"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," said Kate Allen, Amnesty
International's director in Britain.
The number of places in Kosovo where trafficked women are believed to
be working as sex slaves, such as nightclubs, rose from 18 in 1999 to
more than 200 in 2003, the report says. U.N. police have made those
places "off limits" to personnel from KFOR, the NATO-led international
military force in Kosovo. The report, based partly on interviews with
trafficked women, quotes one woman saying: "I was forced by the boss to
serve international soldiers and police officers."
And it quotes another young woman describing what her "owner" did to
her when she tried to resist being a prostitute: "He was pointing the
gun to my head, and he was saying, `If you don't do this in the next
minute, you will be dead.'"
KFOR spokesman Lt.-Col. Jim Moran said that in the three months he's
been on the job, he's never heard of soldiers using prostitutes.
"I haven't seen any of it, I haven't heard any of it," Moran told the
BBC. "We have a no walk-out policy, which means no soldier will leave
the (military) installation in civilian clothes. They're not allowed to
go out at night at the bars, and such things."
U.N. police in Kosovo also have a unit dedicated to the crackdown on
traffickers, 58 of whom have been convicted between 2001 and 2003.
Most of the women smuggled to Kosovo are from Moldova, Bulgaria and
Ukraine, says the Amnesty report, titled, "So does that mean I have
rights? Protecting the human rights of women and girls trafficked for
forced prostitution in Kosovo."
Some are abducted and brought to Kosovo, but most leave
poverty-stricken homes after being tricked into believing they're going
to legitimate jobs in Western Europe.
They're often taken to "trading houses," where they're drugged and
"broken in" before being sold from one trafficker to another for prices
ranging from 50 to 3,500 euros ($84 to $5,860).
"When they reach Kosovo, they are beaten and they are raped," the
report says. "Many are virtually imprisoned, locked into an apartment
or room or a cellar. Some become slaves, working in bars and cafes
during the day and locked into a room servicing 10 to 15 clients a
night by the man they refer to as their `owner.'
"Some find their wages - the reason they were willing to leave their
homes - are never paid, but are withheld to pay off their `debt,' pay
off arbitrary fines, or to pay for their food and accommodation.
"If they are sick, they may be denied access to health care," the
report says.
The report doesn't estimate the size of the sex-slave industry in
Kosovo. It notes that in 2003, more than 400 trafficked women were
helped by the International Organization for Migration to return home
from Kosovo. Between 2000 and 2003, another international agency helped
more than 200 internally trafficked women and girls involved in the sex
trade - a third of them between the ages of 11 and 14, the report says.
The sex-trade in Kosovo rose sharply after 1999, when the U.N. took
over administrative control of the Serbian province and some 40,000
international KFOR soldiers arrived to keep the peace, Amnesty says.
Within a year, international employees made up 80 per cent of the
clients of trafficked women and girls.
From January 2002 to July the following year, between 22 and 27 KFOR
troops "were suspected of offences related to trafficking," according
to a special U.N. police unit set up to deal with the problem.
The report says the police couldn't say whether any of the individuals
were disciplined.
Amnesty officials say Russian, British and French soldiers were among
those involved in the use of trafficked women.
But the organization says it could find no evidence of a criminal
proceeding in any of the 37 KFOR-member countries for trafficking in
sex slaves or for using trafficked women in Kosovo.
=== E.7 ===
Albanian gangs control violent vice networks
The Times (London) - July 17, 2004
BY: Daniel McGrory
ALBANIAN gangsters have established a grip on Britain's sex trade by
using extreme violence.
Vice squad officers estimate that Albanians now control more than 75
per cent of the country's brothels and their operations in London's
Soho alone are worth more than £15 million a year.
They are present in every big city, with Albanian-run brothels recently
uncovered in Glasgow, Liverpool and Cardiff as well as in provincial
strongholds including Telford and Lancaster. Police say that armed
Albanian pimps have scared off underworld rivals. The women they
traffic from Eastern Europe are petrified of giving evidence against
them.
The few women who have dared to testify describe being raped, beaten
and starved.
They are warned that if they try to escape their families back home
will be harmed.
One senior Scotland Yard officer told The Times: "Pimps have always
used violence but these Albanian gangs are truly vicious."
They have fought off rival Turkish, Chinese and Jamaican gangs in
London as well as local pimps in turf wars that have sometimes ended in
gunbattles in the street.
Many of the Albanian mobsters came here as refugees fleeing Balkan
wars. They used established people-trafficking routes through the
former Yugoslavia to smuggle girls from several countries including
Moldova, Lithuania and Ukraine.
Once they are in Britain the women are kept as virtual sex slaves.
Although this is not an industry where statistics are reliable, vice
squad officers estimate that at least 12,000 Eastern European women are
now working in this country as prostitutes.
The figure could be much higher, as there is evidence that the trade in
trafficked women is growing.
The sex industry is an obvious attraction for organised crime because
the profits are enormous and the penalties hardly punitive.
Recent high-profile court cases graphically demonstrated the money to
be made and the lengths the Albanian pimps are willing to go to to
retain their control.
Luan Plakici, 26, a self-taught immigration expert who came to Britain
seven years ago claiming that he was escaping the Kosovo war, was
jailed for ten years last December for kidnapping and living off
prostitution.
His victims told how even the slightest dissent was met with beatings
and rape.
Plakici confessed to illegally smuggling 60 women here. He had amassed
a fortune of well over £1 million in cash, as well as a string of
properties across Europe.
He married one teenager, telling her on their wedding night that she
had to work as a prostitute. In less than two years his "wife" alone
earned him Pounds 144,000.
United Nations officials have given warning that expanding Europe's
borders will mean more prostitutes from Eastern Europe heading for
Britain. "Crime like this is made a lot easier by open borders that not
only allow an increase in legal trade but also an increase in illegal
trade," Burkhard Dammann, chief of the UN's anti-humantrafficking unit,
said.
The testimonies of the women are depressingly familar. They are offered
jobs in Italy, Germany and Britain as waitresses or chambermaids, and
raped by their "employers". They are then forced to pay off colossal
amounts of money for their so-called travel and accommodation.
Police are concerned that the victims are getting younger, with
14-year-old girls found locked up in brothels.
Copyright 2004 The London Times
Posted for Fair Use only.
[ Sullo stesso argomento - KOSOVO: LA NATO E L'ONU RESPONSABILI DEL
BOOM DELLA PROSTITUZIONE
(la Forza Internazionale favorisce la prostituzione / Amnesty accusa la
Nato e l’Onu di alimentare la prostituzione in Kosovo / L’incredibile
apatia dell’Europa rispetto alla prostituzione in Kosovo / Le basi Nato
e la schiavitù sessuale / DISPACCI ANSA sullo stesso tema)
vedi, in lingua italiana:
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/3525
ed anche, in generale su LA TRATTA DELLE BIANCHE NEI BALCANI, i link
indicati alla URL:
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2384 ]
*** Kosovo: Deutsche Soldaten bei Zwangsprostituierten ***
D.1 - ARD-Sendung HEUTE
D.2 - Soldatenleben - Schwere Vorwürfe gegen Soldaten der Bundeswehr
erhebt amnesty international (www.german-foreign-policy.com)
E.1 - LINKS
E.2 - GERMAN SOLDIERS - FORCED PROSTITUTION IN KOSOVO - AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL REPORT
E.3 - NATO tied to Kosovo sex trade
(www.chinaview.cn -- 2004-05-11)
E.4 - Nato force 'feeds Kosovo sex trade'
(Ian Traynor, The Guardian - UK - May 7, 2004)
E.5 - Kosovo UN troops 'fuel sex trade'
(news.bbc.co.uk, May 6, 2004)
E.6 - NATO tied to Kosovo sex trade
(Toronto Star, May 7, '04)
E.7 - Albanian gangs control violent vice networks
(The Times, July 17, 2004)
=== DEUTSCH.1 ===
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: monitor@ wdr.de
Gesendet: Dienstag, 28. September 2004 14:30
Betreff: [monitorliste] MONITOR am 30.09.2004, Sendezeit: 21.45 - 22.30
h, ARD
Für die MONITOR-Sendung am Donnerstag,
den 30. September 2004, die von 21.45 h - 22.30 h
im Ersten ausgestrahlt wird, planen wir folgende Themen:
Schein und Wirklichkeit der Nationalen: Die netten NPDler von nebenan
Billigflieger: Gefahr in der Luft?
Die 150.000-Job-Mär
LKW-Maut und kein Ende
Kosovo: Deutsche Soldaten bei Zwangsprostituierten
Die vollständigen Beiträge finden Sie ab Freitagnachmittag
(ca. 16.00 Uhr) im Video- und Textformat unter:
http://www.monitor.de
Besuchen Sie auch unser Forum:
http://www.wdr.de/tv/monitor/forum/
Wir wünschen Ihnen interessante Diskussionen!
Ihre MONITOR-Redaktion
=== D.2 ===
http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1085008606.php
20.05.2004
Soldatenleben
PRISTINA (Eigener Bericht) - Schwere Vorwürfe gegen Soldaten der
Bundeswehr erhebt amnesty international. Wie aus einem jüngst von
amnesty veröffentlichten Bericht hervorgeht, nehmen deutsche Soldaten
im Kosovo und in Mazedonien sexuelle Zwangsdienste von verschleppten
Frauen in Anspruch, die zu Prostitution gezwungen werden, darunter auch
Minderjährige. Frauenhilfsorganisationen kritisieren, dass sie mit
ihrer Forderung nach konsequenter Verfolgung und Sanktionierung der
deutschen Nutznießer der Zwangsprostitution vom Berliner
Verteidigungsministerium ,,immer wieder abgespeist" werden. Auch der
ehemalige deutsche UN-Verwalter im Kosovo, Michael Steiner, habe
während seiner Amtszeit keine Verbesserung der Lage der Frauen im
Kosovo durchgesetzt.
Wie amnesty in einem jüngst erschienenen Bericht schreibt, hat sich der
Kosovo seit dem Einmarsch der KFOR und der Installierung der
UN-Verwaltung in einen bedeutenden Umschlagplatz für den Menschenhandel
verwandelt.1) Während es in der südserbischen Provinz vor dem
NATO-Angriff auf Jugoslawien keine nennenswerte Prostitution gegeben
habe, seien schon bald nach dem Beginn der Besatzung die ersten
Bordelle mit Zwangsprostituierten in der Nähe von KFOR-Stützpunkten
errichtet worden, bestätigt Jan Digol, ein amnesty-Experte. In Prizren
sollen, so der amnesty-Bericht, deutsche Soldaten im Jahr 1999 zu den
ersten Kunden der verschleppten Frauen gehört haben. Einem
Fernsehbericht zufolge haben deutsche Soldaten regelmäßig
Kinderbordelle aufgesucht.2)
Keine Verbesserungen
Während der Amtszeit des deutschen UN-Verwalters Michael Steiner
(Februar 2002 bis Juli 2003) hat sich die Lage der gewaltsam
verschleppten Frauen im Kosovo nicht verbessert. Während die
UN-Verwaltung für Januar 2001 insgesamt 75 Gebäude nennt, in denen
Frauen zu Prostitution gezwungen wurden, werden für Ende 2003 schon 200
derartige Einrichtungen angegeben. Die Dunkelziffer ist, so Digol, um
ein Vielfaches höher. Während Steiner die Justizverwaltung des Kosovo
von Jugoslawien abgetrennt und damit massiv in das Justizsystem
eingegriffen hat3), hat er offenbar versäumt, einen wirksamen Opfer-
und Zeuginnenschutz für die Zwangsprostituierten durchzusetzen. Eine
effiziente Bekämpfung des Frauenhandels sei so kaum möglich, kritisiert
Isabella Stock von der Frauenhilfsorganisation medica mondiale im
Gespräch mit dieser Redaktion: Während Steiners Amtszeit gab es ,,keine
Veränderungen, die zur Verbesserung der Situation beigetragen hätten".
Keine Konsequenzen
Während die Berliner Regierung Kriege gegen islamisch geprägte Staaten
mit einem angeblichen Kampf für Frauenrechte legitimiert, nutzen
Bundeswehrsoldaten sexuelle Zwangsdienste von verschleppten Frauen,
ohne dass dies wirksam unterbunden würde. medica mondiale fordert das
Verteidigungsministerium seit Jahren auf, die deutschen Soldaten über
Frauenhandel umfassend zu informieren und Menschenrechtsverletzungen
konsequent zu verfolgen und zu ahnden. Vergeblich, wie Stock
kritisiert: ,,Wir werden immer wieder abgespeist."
,,Hervorragender Dienst"
Das Bundeskabinett hat unterdessen am gestrigen Mittwoch beschlossen,
das Mandat für den Kosovo-Einsatz der Bundeswehr zu verlängern. ,,Die
Soldaten leisten im Kosovo einen hervorragenden Dienst", erklärt der
deutsche Verteidigungsminister, ,,und es ist ihrer Professionalität und
Besonnenheit zu verdanken, dass die fragile Stabilität dort überhaupt
Bestand hat".4)
1) ,,So does it mean that we have the rights?" Protecting the human
rights of women and girls trafficked for forced prostitution in Kosovo;
amnesty international 06.05.2004
2) ARD-Weltspiegel 17.12.2000
3) s. dazu Berliner Beute
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1058051536.php%5d
4) s. auch Konsequenz des Krieges
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1080255602.php%5d
und Leitbild
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1080255601.php%5d
Informationen zur Deutschen Außenpolitik
© www.german-foreign-policy.com
=== ENGLISH.1 * LINKS===
*** AI INDEX: EUR 70/010/2004 6 May 2004
"So does it mean that we have the rights?" Protecting the human rights
of women and girls trafficked for forced prostitution in Kosovo
http://web.amnesty.org/library/print/ENGEUR700102004
*** AI INDEX: EUR 70/012/2004 6 May 2004
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE
Kosovo: Trafficked women and girls have human rights
http://web.amnesty.org/library/print/ENGEUR700122004
*** MORE:
A Canadian solution to a peacekeeping sex scandal
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/
20040527/COPEACE27/TPComment/TopStories
Sex Slave Recounts Her Ordeal (by Nidzara Ahmetasevic)
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/bcr3/bcr3_200303_415_3_eng.txt
Europe's cash and carry sex slaves (by Gaby Rado)
http://www.observer.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4641858,00.html
*** OLDER ARTICLES:
Sex slavery in the Balkans (english / italiano)
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2783
Albanian connection to the teenage sex slaves in London
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2584
MORE LINKS on Sex Slavery
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/2384
=== E.2 ===
http://www.freenations.freeuk.com/news-2004-05-28.html
GERMAN SOLDIERS - FORCED PROSTITUTION IN KOSOVO
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT
Dateline 28th May 2004
INTRODUCTION: In this report from our German colleagues we
see a situation of gross sexual exploitation of innocent women in
Kosovo by German troops stationed there. The soldiers are
part of the disastrous UN "peace keeping" force which has
overseen some of the worst ethnic cleansing, murder and
religious bigotry of the Yugoslav war (as in Bosnia and
Croatia the main victims being Serbs). German troops were
severely criticised recently for standing aside and watching as
Albanian thugs torched Orthodox Churches and ethnically
cleansed and murdered Serbs in Kosovo. What we report here
is even worse than the (rightly criticised) activities of
American soldiers in Iraq. For here we have the blatant
sexual exploitation of innocent women, not the degradation
of criminal suspects. And yet do we hear of this from the BBC? Their
reporters do not even need to go to Kosovo - just down the road
to Amnesty headquarters in London. And yet the Amnesty
report the BBC chose to publicise is the one attacking the
United States troops in Iraq not the one exposing German
troops in Kosovo!
PRISTINA: Amnesty International has published a report strongly
condemning soldiers of the German Army in Kosovo. The report
states that German soldiers in Kosovo and Macedonia have
abducted women and under-age girls for sexual exploitation
and to force into prostitution. Women's support
organisations claim that despite their demands for the pursuit and
punishment of the German soldiers the Berlin Ministry of
Defence "always fobs them off". Even the former German UN
Head in Kosovo Michael Steiner was unable to improve the lot
of Kosovo's women during his period in office.
Amnesty claims that since the entry of KFOR troops and the installation
of the UN Administration Kosovo has been turned into a major
market place for the trade in human beings. (1) Before the
NATO attack on Yugoslavia there was no large scale
prostitution in Kosovo, immediately after the UN occupation
began there were established the first brothels using forced
prostitution near the KFOR camps, the Amnesty expert Jan Digol
confirmed. In Prizren, claims the Amnesty report, among the first
clients for the abducted women were German soldiers in 1999.
According to one television report German soldiers were
regular visitors at child brothels. (2)
During the term of office of the German UN Administrator Michael
Steiner (February 2002 to July 2003) the position of the
forcibly abducted Kosovo women did not improve. While the UN
Administraion for January 2001 identified a total of 75
buildings in which women were forced into prostitution by
the end of 2003 there were 200 such establishments. While Steiner
divorced the Administration of Justice in Kosovo from Yugoslavia
and therefore interfered greatly in the justice system he
omitted apparently to implement a system of protection for
victims and witnesses of forced prostitution. An effective
attack on the trade in women is therefore hardly possible
says Isabella Stock of the Women's Help Organisation Medica
Mondiale During Steiner's period in office there were "no
changes which would have contributed to an improvement in the
situation"
While the German Government justifies wars against Islamic States
partly on the grounds of fighting for the rights of women,
German soldiers are engaged in the sexual exploitation of
abducted women without any effective attempts to counteract
the scandal. Medica Mondiale has been demanding for years of
the German Defence Ministry that they educate their troops
and consistently follow up breaches of human rights. Stock
claims this was all in vain "We were always fobbed off"
The German Cabinet has just decided to extend the mandate for the
German Armed Services in Kosovo. "The soldiers are
performing an exceptional service" was the opinion of the
German Minister for Defence. "and it is thanks to their
professionalism and discretion that the fragile stability
has survived at all" (4)
1) ,,So does it mean that we have the rights?" Protecting the human
rights of women and girls trafficked for forced prostitution in
Kosovo; amnesty international 06.05.2004
2) ARD-Weltspiegel 17.12.2000
3) s. dazu Berliner Beute
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1058051536.php%5d
4) s. auch Konsequenz des Krieges
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1080255602.php%5d
und Leitbild
[http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1080255601.php%5d
=== E.3 ===
NATO tied to Kosovo sex trade.
www.chinaview.cn
2004-05-11 13:39:56
BEIJING, May 11, (Xinhuanet) -- A leading human
rights group says international workers and
peacekeepers in Kosovo are responsible for agrowing
trade in sex slaves that exploits girls as young as 11.
In a report released Monday, Amnesty International
accuses United Nations personnel and NATO-led
soldiers in the Serbian province of using the trafficked
women and girls for sex.
The report estimates that international military and civilian
peacekeepers, 2 per cent of Kosovo's population, make
up 20 per cent of the clients of women and girls trafficked
to the province.
The number of places in Kosovo where trafficked women
are believed to be working as sex slaves, such as nightclubs,
rose from 18 in 1999 to more than 200 in 2003.
The report says most of the women smuggled to Kosovo
are from Moldova, Bulgaria and Ukraine.
=== E.4 ===
Nato force 'feeds Kosovo sex trade'
Ian Traynor in Zagreb
Friday May 7, 2004
The Guardian, UK
Western troops, policemen, and civilians are largely to blame for the
rapid growth of the sex slavery industry in Kosovo over the past five
years, a mushrooming trade in which hundreds of women, many of them
under-age girls, are tortured, raped, abused and then criminalised,
Amnesty International said yesterday.
In a report on the rapid growth of sex-trafficking and forced
prostitution rackets since Nato troops and UN administrators took over
the Balkan province in 1999, Amnesty said Nato soldiers, UN police, and
western aid workers operated with near impunity in exploiting the
victims of the sex traffickers.
As a result of the influx of thousands of Nato-led peacekeepers,
"Kosovo soon became a major destination country for women trafficked
into forced prostitution. A small-scale local market for prostitution
was transformed into a large-scale industry based on trafficking,
predominantly run by criminal networks."
The international presence in Kosovo continues to generate 80% of the
income for the pimps, brothel-owners, and mafiosi who abduct local
girls or traffic women mainly from Moldova, Romania, Ukraine, and
Russia to Kosovo via Serbia, the report said, although the
international "client base" for the sex trade has fallen to 20% last
year from 80% four years ago.
Up to 2,000 women are estimated to have been coerced into sex slavery
in Kosovo, which had seen "an unprecedented escalation in trafficking"
in recent years. The number of premises in Kosovo listed by a special
UN police unit as being involved in the rackets has swollen from 18 in
1999 to 200 this year.
A few weeks ago the UN's department of peacekeeping in New York
acknowledged that "peacekeepers have come to be seen as part of the
problem in trafficking rather than the solution".
The sex slavery in Kosovo parallels similar phenomena next door in
Bosnia, where the arrival of thousands of Nato peacekeepers in 1995
fuelled a thriving forced prostitution industry.
International personnel in Kosovo enjoy immunity from prosecution
unless this is waived by the UN in New York for UN employees or by
national military chiefs for Nato-led troops.
One police officer last year and another the year before had their
immunity waived, enabling criminal prosecutions.
"Amnesty International has been unable to find any evidence of any
criminal proceedings related to trafficking against any military
personnel in their home countries," the 80-page report said.
The report said that US, French, German and Italian soldiers were known
to have been involved in the rackets.
Criticism of the international troops in Kosovo follows a recent
broader indictment of the Kosovo mission by the International Crisis
Group thinktank, which called for the mission to be overhauled.
Women were bought and sold for up to £2,000 and then kept in appalling
conditions as slaves by their "owners", Amnesty said. They were
routinely raped "as a means of control and coercion", beaten, held at
gunpoint, robbed, and kept in darkened rooms unable to go out.
Apart from women trafficked into Kosovo, there is a worsening problem
with girls abducted locally. A Kosovo support group working with
victims reported that a third of these locals were under 14, and 80%
were under 18.
The UN admission in March that its peacekeepers were part of the
problem was welcome, said Amnesty
=== E.5 ===
(see comments at:
http://disc.server.com/
discussion.cgi?disc=217548;article=3707;title=Slobodan%20Milosevic%20Tri
al
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3686173.stm
Thu May 6, 2004
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 may be involved in the trafficking itself.
Amnesty says girls as young as 11 from eastern European countries are
being sold into the sex slavery.
The UN and Nato forces said they had not yet seen the report to comment.
Trading houses
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.
The report condemns the role of the international peacekeepers.
Slavery
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.
Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said:
"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."
Criminals
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 K-For 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.
=== E.6 ===
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/
Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1083881410545&call_pageid=968332188492&col=9
68793972154
Toronto Star
May 7, 2004. 01:00 AM
NATO tied to Kosovo sex trade
Amnesty also points finger at U.N. peacekeepers
Exploit women and girls as young as 11, report says
SANDRO CONTENTA
EUROPEAN BUREAU
LONDON-International workers and peacekeepers in Kosovo are responsible
for a growing trade in sex slaves that exploits girls as young as 11, a
leading human rights group says.
In a report released yesterday, Amnesty International accuses United
Nations personnel and NATO-led soldiers in the Serbian province of
using the trafficked women and girls for sex.
The report estimates that international military and civilian
peacekeepers - 2 per cent of Kosovo's population - make up 20 per cent
of the clients of women and girls trafficked to the province.
"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," said Kate Allen, Amnesty
International's director in Britain.
The number of places in Kosovo where trafficked women are believed to
be working as sex slaves, such as nightclubs, rose from 18 in 1999 to
more than 200 in 2003, the report says. U.N. police have made those
places "off limits" to personnel from KFOR, the NATO-led international
military force in Kosovo. The report, based partly on interviews with
trafficked women, quotes one woman saying: "I was forced by the boss to
serve international soldiers and police officers."
And it quotes another young woman describing what her "owner" did to
her when she tried to resist being a prostitute: "He was pointing the
gun to my head, and he was saying, `If you don't do this in the next
minute, you will be dead.'"
KFOR spokesman Lt.-Col. Jim Moran said that in the three months he's
been on the job, he's never heard of soldiers using prostitutes.
"I haven't seen any of it, I haven't heard any of it," Moran told the
BBC. "We have a no walk-out policy, which means no soldier will leave
the (military) installation in civilian clothes. They're not allowed to
go out at night at the bars, and such things."
U.N. police in Kosovo also have a unit dedicated to the crackdown on
traffickers, 58 of whom have been convicted between 2001 and 2003.
Most of the women smuggled to Kosovo are from Moldova, Bulgaria and
Ukraine, says the Amnesty report, titled, "So does that mean I have
rights? Protecting the human rights of women and girls trafficked for
forced prostitution in Kosovo."
Some are abducted and brought to Kosovo, but most leave
poverty-stricken homes after being tricked into believing they're going
to legitimate jobs in Western Europe.
They're often taken to "trading houses," where they're drugged and
"broken in" before being sold from one trafficker to another for prices
ranging from 50 to 3,500 euros ($84 to $5,860).
"When they reach Kosovo, they are beaten and they are raped," the
report says. "Many are virtually imprisoned, locked into an apartment
or room or a cellar. Some become slaves, working in bars and cafes
during the day and locked into a room servicing 10 to 15 clients a
night by the man they refer to as their `owner.'
"Some find their wages - the reason they were willing to leave their
homes - are never paid, but are withheld to pay off their `debt,' pay
off arbitrary fines, or to pay for their food and accommodation.
"If they are sick, they may be denied access to health care," the
report says.
The report doesn't estimate the size of the sex-slave industry in
Kosovo. It notes that in 2003, more than 400 trafficked women were
helped by the International Organization for Migration to return home
from Kosovo. Between 2000 and 2003, another international agency helped
more than 200 internally trafficked women and girls involved in the sex
trade - a third of them between the ages of 11 and 14, the report says.
The sex-trade in Kosovo rose sharply after 1999, when the U.N. took
over administrative control of the Serbian province and some 40,000
international KFOR soldiers arrived to keep the peace, Amnesty says.
Within a year, international employees made up 80 per cent of the
clients of trafficked women and girls.
From January 2002 to July the following year, between 22 and 27 KFOR
troops "were suspected of offences related to trafficking," according
to a special U.N. police unit set up to deal with the problem.
The report says the police couldn't say whether any of the individuals
were disciplined.
Amnesty officials say Russian, British and French soldiers were among
those involved in the use of trafficked women.
But the organization says it could find no evidence of a criminal
proceeding in any of the 37 KFOR-member countries for trafficking in
sex slaves or for using trafficked women in Kosovo.
=== E.7 ===
Albanian gangs control violent vice networks
The Times (London) - July 17, 2004
BY: Daniel McGrory
ALBANIAN gangsters have established a grip on Britain's sex trade by
using extreme violence.
Vice squad officers estimate that Albanians now control more than 75
per cent of the country's brothels and their operations in London's
Soho alone are worth more than £15 million a year.
They are present in every big city, with Albanian-run brothels recently
uncovered in Glasgow, Liverpool and Cardiff as well as in provincial
strongholds including Telford and Lancaster. Police say that armed
Albanian pimps have scared off underworld rivals. The women they
traffic from Eastern Europe are petrified of giving evidence against
them.
The few women who have dared to testify describe being raped, beaten
and starved.
They are warned that if they try to escape their families back home
will be harmed.
One senior Scotland Yard officer told The Times: "Pimps have always
used violence but these Albanian gangs are truly vicious."
They have fought off rival Turkish, Chinese and Jamaican gangs in
London as well as local pimps in turf wars that have sometimes ended in
gunbattles in the street.
Many of the Albanian mobsters came here as refugees fleeing Balkan
wars. They used established people-trafficking routes through the
former Yugoslavia to smuggle girls from several countries including
Moldova, Lithuania and Ukraine.
Once they are in Britain the women are kept as virtual sex slaves.
Although this is not an industry where statistics are reliable, vice
squad officers estimate that at least 12,000 Eastern European women are
now working in this country as prostitutes.
The figure could be much higher, as there is evidence that the trade in
trafficked women is growing.
The sex industry is an obvious attraction for organised crime because
the profits are enormous and the penalties hardly punitive.
Recent high-profile court cases graphically demonstrated the money to
be made and the lengths the Albanian pimps are willing to go to to
retain their control.
Luan Plakici, 26, a self-taught immigration expert who came to Britain
seven years ago claiming that he was escaping the Kosovo war, was
jailed for ten years last December for kidnapping and living off
prostitution.
His victims told how even the slightest dissent was met with beatings
and rape.
Plakici confessed to illegally smuggling 60 women here. He had amassed
a fortune of well over £1 million in cash, as well as a string of
properties across Europe.
He married one teenager, telling her on their wedding night that she
had to work as a prostitute. In less than two years his "wife" alone
earned him Pounds 144,000.
United Nations officials have given warning that expanding Europe's
borders will mean more prostitutes from Eastern Europe heading for
Britain. "Crime like this is made a lot easier by open borders that not
only allow an increase in legal trade but also an increase in illegal
trade," Burkhard Dammann, chief of the UN's anti-humantrafficking unit,
said.
The testimonies of the women are depressingly familar. They are offered
jobs in Italy, Germany and Britain as waitresses or chambermaids, and
raped by their "employers". They are then forced to pay off colossal
amounts of money for their so-called travel and accommodation.
Police are concerned that the victims are getting younger, with
14-year-old girls found locked up in brothels.
Copyright 2004 The London Times
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