(Institute for War and Peace Reporting) 
          Kosovo Prostitution Racket Flourishes 
          UN struggles to break up lucrative Kosovo prostitution racket 

          By Adriatik Kelmendi in Pristina (BCR No. 230, 28-March-01) 


Their respective nations may be struggling to make peace, but 
relations between Serb and Albanian criminals are flourishing - 
nowhere more so than in the prostitution business. 

In the last year or so, the two have combined to traffic hundreds of 
girls into Kosovo to work in brothels set up for the legions of 
international peacekeeping troops based in the province. 

Western officials are so alarmed that they've ordered UNMIK police 
and K-For troops to crack down on the racket which earns the 
gangsters around $1.5 million a week. 

The problem has its roots in the aftermath of the 1999 conflict. 
Criminals moved quickly to exploit both the shambolic judicial and 
police service and the arrival of some 60,000 peacekeepers and 
civilian staff. 

Women, mainly from Ukraine, Hungary and Romania were smuggled via 
Belgrade to 100 or so Kosovo "clubs" - bars and nightclubs doubling 
up as brothels. The girls are usually tricked into the racket with 
promises of jobs as waitresses and dancers. 

"Pimps take the women's passports away to restrict their freedom of 
movement, " said Robin Lerner from the OSCE's Department for Human 
Rights in Pristina. 

The prostitutes are often locked up in filthy rooms and forced to 
serve 10 clients a night. Sexually transmitted diseases are on the 
rise as the girls are pressured into having unprotected sex. 

Gordon Moon, the man brought in to spearhead the campaign against the 
traffickers, believes Serb and ethnic Albanian mobsters are largely 
behind the lucrative trade. 

"There's much hatred between Serbs and Albanians," said Moon, the 
head of the Trafficking and Prostitution Investigation Unit at the UN 
International police force CIVPOL. "But in organised crime they 
cooperate without any problems. It's big business, and it's 
completely unaffected by the political situation." 

The Serb gangsters buy women from East European traffickers for about 
$2200 and sell them on to ethnic Albanians. Around half are smuggled 
into Kosovo. 

According to the International Organisation for Migration, IOM, 64 
per cent of the women are Moldovan, 15 per cent Romanian, 10 per cent 
Bulgarian, nine per cent Ukrainian and one per cent Albanian and 
Russian. "They're all young and vulnerable, and most weren't 
prostitutes to start with," said Moon. 

Bernard Kouchner, the first UN Kosovo administrator, brought in 
legislation banning the trafficking of women late last year. He also 
introduced newer and stiffer sentencing for those involved in the 
trade. 

UN legislation rules that anyone implicated in the business could be 
imprisoned for between 2 to 12 years in prison, the prostitutes' 
clients face prison terms of up to five years. Since the legislation 
was brought in, some forty men have been arrested for trafficking and 
one club in Pec in western Kosovo closed down. 

In one of the biggest operations against the racketeers, hundreds of 
NATO soldiers and UN police raided brothels, controlled by both Serbs 
and Albanians, in the town of Kosovo Polje, close to Pristina. Five 
men were detained in the raid. 

Moon admits he and his twenty-strong investigating team face an 
uphill struggle. "There are more than 100 brothels across Kosovo and 
the number is increasing," he said. 

When prostitutes rings are broken up, the girls are given the option 
of returning home. The IOM contacts organisations in their country of 
origin to find them jobs or at least provide them financial 
assistance. 

So far, the IOM says 135 women press-ganged into prostitution have 
been repatriated. But according to the OSCE's Robin Lerner, not all 
of them want to return. 

"Sometimes, the situation is complicated, " he said, " When someone 
from their family sold them, they don't dare to go back. In some 
cases they're warned that they will be killed if they return. This is 
a huge problem." 

He mentions the case of 12-year-old Drita from Albania. She was found 
working in a Prizren nightclub. Her parents had apparently sold her 
to a trafficker. 

Given the scale of the problem, Moon is realistic about the outcome 
of the campaign against prostitution. "It's the oldest profession in 
the world - so no matter how hard we try we're unlikely to stamp it 
out completely." 

Adriatik Kelmendi is a regular IWPR contributor 
-- 
Melanie Orhant 
Stop-Traffic Moderator