International presence generates sex trade

In the second half of 1999, 40,000 KFOR troops were deployed and hundreds of UNMIK personnel arrived along with staff from more than 250 international NGOs. Within months of KFOR’s arrival, brothels were reported around the military bases occupied by international peace-keepers. 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 organized criminal networks.

Some sectors of the economy grew rapidly, through increased prices paid by international personnel for rented property and services, resulting in an increase in disposable income in certain sections of the population.

By late 1999 the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) had reported on significant organized prostitution in four locations close to major concentrations of KFOR troops. Most of the clients were reported to be members of the international military presence, while some KFOR soldiers were allegedly also involved in the trafficking process itself. Eighteen premises were identified, including in the Gnjilane/Gjilan area, where clients included US military personnel; in Prizren, where users reportedly included German KFOR soldiers and other internationals; in Pejë/Peæ, where residents reported Italian KFOR soldiers as clients; and in Mitrovicë/a, where French KFOR reportedly patronized make-shift brothels.(33)

Since then, there has been an unprecedented escalation in trafficking in Kosovo. From the 18 establishments identified in late 1999, by January 2001, some 75 such premises were listed in the first "off-limits list" issued to UNMIK staff. This listed bars, clubs and restaurants where trafficked women were thought to work, and which had been declared "off-limits" to UNMIK and KFOR personnel (see Chapter 6). By 1 January 2004, there were 200 bars, restaurants and cafes on the "off-limits list".(34)

KFOR and UNMIK were publicly identified in early 2000 as a factor in the increase in trafficking for prostitution by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).(35) In May 2000, Pasquale Lupoli, IOM’s Chief of Mission in Kosovo, alleged that KFOR troops and UN staff in Kosovo had fed a "mushrooming of night clubs" in which young girls were being forced into prostitution by criminal gangs. "The large international presence in Kosovo itself makes this trafficking possible."(36)

Nevertheless, in February 2001 the IOM had cautioned, "[t]he fact that you have 45,000 foreigners in Kosovo could be one element in the equation, but it is definitely not the whole equation."(37) The trafficking industry was also assisted by Kosovo’s proximity to source countries and well-established trafficking routes via Albania to the European Union (EU), as well as cooperation between Serbian, Albanian, Kosovo Albanian and Macedonian organized criminal networks. A lack of sufficient and experienced police officers and a weak criminal justice system also enabled the development of trafficking.

Although the development of trafficking can be attributed to the presence of the international community, the sex industry has subsequently developed to serve a wider client-base. Over the past three years it has increasingly served the local community, which both the IOM and the CPWC estimate now make up around 80 per cent of the clientele.

Given low levels of prostitution and trafficking of women prior to July 1999, all the available evidence suggests that without the presence of the international community and an influx of ready-made western consumers, Kosovo would have remained a relative backwater in the Balkan trafficking industry.

 http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGEUR700102004

E Veteta4_u
 Not only does Kosova let the international community play around with their future but their women to !                                     How SICK