CIVPOL Home >> Newspaper Articles >> The Bleeding Sore of Kosovo Society

The Bleeding Sore of Kosovo Society
by
Neeraj K Singh

To a casual passer-by, the “Dollar Bar” along the Main Highway in Zubin Potok would appear to be the sort of placid countryside pub one would frequent for a quiet release after a hard day’s work. Then what was the UNMIK Police doing there in such strength on the night of 11th June? They were there to reveal what lay beneath the cloak of apparent serenity – a vicious exploitation of young girls illegally smuggled into Kosovo from other East European countries and then forced into prostitution.

Three victims of trafficking – two Ukrainian and one Moldavian – were rescued and repatriated. The Kosovo-Serbian owner of the restaurant is the prime suspect. He may end up in prison or he may evade justice for want of evidence. The point is that no legal system can be the cure for a disease that runs deep in the veins of society.

Persons in the “Dollar Bar” described the suspect as the girls’ “owner”, who charged people money for having sex with them. The term “owner” speaks powerfully of the murky world of flesh trade, where humans are bought by back street peddlers, who then sell them piecemeal every day.

A typical victim is a 20 year-old Kosovo-Albanian girl from Mitrovica. She had learned to be wary of Serbs, but not men of her own ethnicity. That sadly changed the day she was brought to a restaurant in Orahovac, whose Kosovo Albanian owner and two female employees (also Kosovo-Albanians) beat her and forced her into prostitution. Her ordeal ended on 13th June when UNMIK Police came to her rescue and arrested her tormentors. Mitrovica may be difficult to unify but, in the dark alleys of crime, Kosovo Serbs and Albanians do seem willing to cooperate for profit through the exploitation of human weakness.

It is not my contention that Kosovo alone is the home for all evil. Certainly no part of the world is left untouched by such crime. What is alarming however, is the high incidence of prostitution in Kosovo when considered in proportion to the population. On the night of June 16, in a single operation confined to the area in the vicinity of the Bus Station in Prizren, UNMIK Police apprehended 34 foreign women illegally working in 15 bars and cafes. They were not there merely to serve refreshments to customers.

What is more, this crime has proliferated to all parts of Kosovo. In a single week in mid-June, UNMIK Police arrested 10 male suspects and recovered a total of 45 women believed to be in the service of men using them for organized sex. These recoveries were made from Prizren, Gnjilane, Mitrovica and Pristina, indicative of the mushrooming spread of this social cancer.

Realizing the enormity of the problem, UNMIK Police in September 2000 created a special unit for investigating such crimes. The ‘Trafficking and Prostitution Investigation Unit (TPIU)’, as it is called, has teams of investigators working in each of the five regions of Kosovo. Its job has been made easier with the promulgation by UNMIK earlier this year of a new regulation defining trafficking and prescribing punishments for the offence. The Police is also taking advantage of the recent establishment of municipal bodies. TPIU investigators accompany the local municipal inspectors for health and fire safety during their rounds of the bars and cafes in order to question customers and females found at those businesses. The promulgation of new laws and creation of new executive bodies notwithstanding, the bottom line remains – prostitution is a social problem, which can be meaningfully addressed only with the cooperation of the people.

At the crossroads of history, at a time when Kosovo attempts to rediscover its true entity and carve a niche for itself in global society, its collective response to social ills will define its integral value system. It is these values that will constitute the foundation of civil society in Kosovo – a foundation that will endure. In the recent past the people of Kosovo have themselves been victims of the worst form of criminal perpetrations. This is their opportunity to turn back and demonstrate to the world that they stand for a humane and just society in Kosovo, not one where the innocent and helpless are devoured at the altar of greed and power.