Hopes Betrayed: Trafficking of Women and Girls to Post-Conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina for Forced Prostitution

Citation:

Vandenberg, Martina. 2002. Bosnia and Herzegovina: Hopes Betrayed: Trafficking of Women and Girls to Post-Conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina for Forced Prostitution. 14 (9). New York: Human Rights Watch.

Author: Martina Vandenberg

Abstract:

Traffickers who have forced thousands of women and girls into prostitution in Bosnia and Herzegovina are not being apprehended for their crimes. Local corruption and the complicity of international officials in Bosnia have allowed a trafficking network to flourish, in which women are tricked, threatened, physically assaulted and sold as chattel, the report said. The 75-page report, "Hopes Betrayed: Trafficking of Women and Girls to Post-Conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina for Forced Prostitution," documents how local Bosnian police officers facilitate the trafficking by creating false documents; visiting brothels to partake of free sexual services; and sometimes engaging in trafficking directly. Human Rights Watch also obtained documents from the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) that revealed cases of International Police Task Force (IPTF) officers visiting nightclubs as clients of trafficked women and girls, arranging to have trafficked women delivered to their residences, and in one case, tampering with witnesses to conceal an IPTF officer's complicity. 

Keywords: political corruption, local government, United Nations, sex trafficking, prostitution, corruption, International Police Task Force

Topics: Corruption, Displacement & Migration, Gender, Women, Girls, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, International Organizations, Justice, Post-Conflict, Sexual Violence, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, Sexual Slavery, SV against Women, Trafficking, Human Trafficking, Sex Trafficking Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Year: 2002