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U.S.,
U.N. and Israel Slammed for Human Trafficking and Sex Slavery
By
Neveen A. Salem, IOL Correspondent, Washington
CAPITOL
HILL, Washington D.C., April 25 (IslamOnline) - Witnesses testifying
before the Congressional Committee on International Relations’
subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights Wednesday
slammed the U.S., United Nations, and Israeli officials for directly
participating in trafficking human beings, specifically women and
young girls, for the sex industry in Bosnia and Israel and involvement
in what witnesses and congress members classified as “the rapes of
women and children.”
The
hearing - entitled “The U.N. and the Sex Slave Trade in Bosnia:
Isolated Case or Larger Problem in the U.N. System,” was chaired by
Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fl), co-chaired by Christopher
Smith (R-NJ), and also presided over by ranking International
Relations member Cynthia McKinney (D-GA).
“The
State Department has initiated a ‘zero tolerance’ policy with
respect to immoral, unethical and illegal behavior. This includes
involvement in trafficking or prostitution. All U.S. police personnel
[peacekeepers] are briefed by the Bureau of International Narcotics
and Law Enforcement Affairs (BINLEA) prior to their departure,”
Ambassador Nancy Ely-Raphel of the U.S. Department of State testified.
She
also offered words of support of Israel, saying, “I would like to
say for the record, the government of Israel has undertaken
initiatives to eradicate trafficking.”
While
the hearing evolved around U.N., U.S. involvement in the sex slave
trade in Bosnia, Israel was also included due to its ranking as a
third tier violator of laws concerning the trafficking and kidnapping
of humans, specifically for the sex slave trade. Bosnia is also ranked
as a third tier country.
Ely-Raphel
also went on to state that, “Specifically, involvement in such
activities will result in immediate termination of an officer’s
contract.”
However,
when she and fellow State Department official Robert Gifford of the
BINLEA were questioned by Congress as to whether or not any of the
terminated and repatriated personnel were prosecuted for engaging in
sexual activities with sex slaves and children; the buying and selling
and rape of women and children; and the use of official U.S. and U.N.
vehicles to transport trafficked humans, the officials admitted that
none have been prosecuted and that “the U.S. Department of Justice
has commented that such activities are beyond their jurisdiction.”
The
congressional members began with an overview of their concerns
regarding reports of U.N. peacekeepers involvement in the buying,
selling and transporting of women and young girls for being sold to
brothels or American and U.N. service personnel in Bosnia as personal
sex slaves.
The
most hard hitting testimony came from Ben Johnston, an aviation
technician with DynCorp, a company contracted by the U.S. Department
of Defense (DOD) to work in Bosnia.
Johnston,
who is married to a Bosnian woman, blew the whistle on DynCorp last
year when he was sent to work in the region and began witnessing
American servicemen engaged in buying and selling young girls to keep
them as personal sex slaves. He was fired quickly after going to his
supervisors, not realizing how “deeply into it” his supervisors
were involved.
Johnston
also testified that some of the girls were as young as twelve while
many of the buyers were middle aged to older men, including one top
DynCorp employee who was even videotaped raping a 12-year-old girl
“as she screamed No!”
“When
I arrived in Bosnia…I noticed some strange behavior from my
co-workers. I would see young girls walking around the town with the
older guys I worked with. These men would have their hands on these
girls as they walked,” Johnston testified.
“Finally,
one day, I heard something to the effect of a DynCorp employee
bragging that his girl wasn’t a day over twelve,” he continued.
"At
first I just told the guys it was wrong,” Johnston told Insight
Magazine in the early days of his investigations into the issue.
“Then I went to my supervisors, including John Hirtz, although at
the time I didn't realize how deep into it he was. Later I learned
that he had videotaped himself having sex with two girls and CID has
that video as evidence. Hirtz is the guy who would take new employees
to the brothels and set them up so he got his women free. The Serbian
mafia would give Hirtz the women free and, when one of the guys was
leaving the country, Hirtz would go to the mafia and make sure that
the guys didn't owe them any money."
"None
of the girls," continues Johnston, "were from Bosnia. They
were from Russia, Romania and other places, and they were imported in
by DynCorp and the Serbian mafia. These guys would say, 'I gotta go to
Serbia this weekend to pick up three girls.' They talk about it and
brag about how much they pay for them. Women are sold hourly, nightly
or permanently,” the report continued.
He
went on to support the testimony of David Lamb, a former U.N. Human
Rights Investigator in Bosnia who testified that the sex slave trade
would not thrive if it were not for the presence of U.N. and U.S.
peacekeeping forces, as they make up a large market -contributing over
30% of money to pimps, brothel owners and slave masters.
But
Lamb’s most damaging allegations were aimed at the United Nations
for attempting to cover up the actions of its employees.
“Individual
efforts by U.N. investigators to look deeply into the Bosnian
underworld, and to expose involved U.N. personnel, were met with a
lack of support at the least, and often with an effort to intimidate
the investigators into abandoning their investigation… whenever
involvement of U.N. personnel surfaced during investigations, support
from U.N. headquarters stopped,” Lamb asserted.
Martina
E. Vandenberg, a human rights lawyer and Europe Researcher for the
Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, also testified that
International Police Task Force (IPTF) and U.S. government contractors
have been documented as being directly involved in the trafficking,
buying and selling of women and girls and in engaging in sexual
activities at brothels known to contain trafficked women, “directly
violating the United Nations ‘zero tolerance’ policy by even
visiting those brothels.”
She
also testified that violators enjoyed immunity under U.N. laws
protecting IPTF officers and that the “United Nations Bosnia Mission
officials admitted that repatriation served as the only punishment for
those involved in trafficking-related misconduct.
“They
could not point to any cases where the U.N. secretary-general had
waived immunity, nor could they point to any prosecutions in home
countries,” she continued.
Visibly
outraged, Representative McKinney said “I think we can do a little
better than [just] writing [U.N. Secretary General] Kofi Anan a
letter,” referring to a recommendation by Representative Smith that
they get Congress to send a joint letter to the U.N. head. McKinney
went on to demand that Congress take steps towards forcing Annan to
waive immunity in cases related to IPTF officers found to have been
involved in trafficking-related activity.
The
hearing was also joined via satellite conference from Tel Aviv,
Israel, by Nomi Levenkon, who serves as the head of the legal
department for the Hotline for Migrant Workers in Israel, which serves
to combat the trafficking and sex slave industry in Israel, which is
regarded as one of the world’s most flagrant violators.
Levenkon
refuted testimony by the State Department and comments by Chairwoman
Ros-Lehtinen that Israel had taken progressive steps towards halting
the trafficking and exploitation of women by citing that the Israeli
police were deeply involved in the sex-slave trade. She chalked up
Israeli steps as a public relations inspired initiative due to
pressures from the international community.
She
went on to comment that the steps that have been taken by the Israeli
government only arose after U.S. pressure and human rights groups
publicized the violations and complicity on the part of the Israeli
government.
The
hearing ended with Representatives McKinney and Smith vowing to take
steps to ensure that the U.S. and the U.N. take steps towards
prosecuting employees found engaging n trafficking activity and said
they would address the initiative to create a law that would broaden
the Department of Justice’s jurisdiction to allow for the
prosecution of Americans engaged in such activities.
Representative
Smith went on to say that immediate steps were necessary because
current steps taken against personnel – termination and repatriation
– amount to “less than a slap on the wrist.”
Representative
McKinney was adamant about taking steps that would hold violators and
their supervising agencies accountable for such crimes. She also
commented that all countries involved in the trafficking of humans
should be held equally accountable and that no one country should be
held more accountable solely because of its ethnicity or lack of
influence in certain political circles.
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