Crackdown on Balkan sex trade

SARAJEVO, Bosnia -- New special police units have been formed to crackdown on the trafficking of women in Bosnia.

The campaign, called the Special Trafficking Operation Program (STOP), aims to rescue and return victims to their countries of origin with the help of specially recruited officers, United Nations officials said.

Dedicated units in both Bosnia's Muslim-Croat federation and the Serb republic to help eradicate the organised prostitution, the U.N. mission in Bosnia has said.

They will liaise closely with U.N. human rights investigators, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and other groups to ensure criminal investigations are properly conducted.

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They will also support specialised units in local police forces assigned to trafficking issues.

In addition, the IOM has set up a second Sarajevo shelter for trafficked women and girls before repatriation.

The majority of women who are victims, 80 percent, come from Moldova and Romania, 10 percent are minors.

Others come from different parts of eastern Europe, mostly lured by the prospect of work, but ending up in brothels run by local criminals who take away their documents.

Bosnia, with its 20,000 NATO-led troops as well as U.N. police and other internationals, has become a final destination for many women, human rights activists say.

Celhia de Lavarene, the U.N. adviser on gender policy said: "The mission considers trafficking a grave violation of human rights, both locally and internationally."

In a message to the traffickers, she added: "Wherever you are, you will be found, prosecuted and sent to jail. There will be no hiding place for you anywhere in Bosnia-Herzegovina."

The U.N. mission and the IOM have helped and repatriated 329 trafficking victims since March 1999, the U.N. human rights officer Satya Tripathi said.

The new campaign was launched following a series of raids on 260 nightclubs throughout the country suspected of involvement in the illegal sex trade.

Local police raids, monitored by U.N. international police officers, revealed that 25 percent of women working in the clubs claimed to have been forced into prostitution.

Authorities are increasingly having to tackle more sophisticated tactics deployed by the owners of brothels to avoid detection as well as the embarrassing allegations that some local and international police officers patronise the brothels.

The U.N. mission will closely monitor internal investigations in cases of alleged police involvement.

Since early 2000, six nightclub owners in the federation have been successfully prosecuted for promoting prostitution, false imprisonment and other offences, Tripathi added.

Sentences ranged from four to 30 months in prison and up to $4,500 in fines.