Woman Sacked
for Revealing U.N. Links With Sex Trade
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These Bosnian women were systematically raped by Serb militias, and are now believed to have been sexually abused by U.N. workers as well |
LONDON,
August 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A dossier sent by Kathryn
Bolkovac to her employers, detailing U.N. workers’ involvement in
the sex trade in Bosnia, cost the American her job with the
international police force, reported Times Online Wednesday,
August 7.
She
was sacked after disclosing that U.N. peacekeepers went to nightclubs
where girls as young as 15 were forced to dance naked and have sex
with customers, and that U.N. personnel and international aid workers
were linked to prostitution rings in the Balkans, the paper said.
After
a two-year battle, an employment tribunal ruled Tuesday, August 6,
that Bolkovac was unfairly dismissed by DynCorp, an American company
whose branch in Salisbury, Wiltshire, dealt with the contracts of the
American officers working for the international police force in
Bosnia.
There
will be a further hearing at Southampton to decide the amount of
compensation DynCorp must pay Bolkovac.
“During
her time in Bosnia as an investigator, Bolkovac, 41, uncovered
evidence of girls who refused to have sex being beaten and raped in
bars by their pimps while peacekeepers stood and watched,” the paper
added.
She
discovered that one U.N. policeman, who was supposed to be
investigating the sex trade, paid £700 to a bar owner for an underage
girl who he kept captive in his apartment to use in his own
prostitution racket.
According
to Times, she detailed her findings in a series of explicit
e-mails to DynCorp, but after first being demoted and transferred from
the investigation, she was sacked for allegedly falsifying her
timekeeping records.
Charles
Twiss, the tribunal chairman, said: “We have considered DynCorp’s
explanation of why they dismissed her and find it completely
unbelievable. There is no doubt whatever that the reason for her
dismissal was that she made a protected disclosure and was unfairly
dismissed.”
There
are powerful voices in support of her claims, including that of
Madeleine Rees, the head of the U.N. Human Rights Commission office in
Sarajevo, who is in no doubt that trafficking in women started with
the arrival of the international peacekeepers in 1992.
As
well as 21,000 NATP peacekeepers and aid workers, there were police
from 40 countries trying to keep Bosnia’s warring factions apart.
“When
the civil war ended in 1992, there were curfews and ordinary people
didn’t have cars or money,” Rees said.
“Only
the international community would have been able to get to the flats
and bars being made available with foreign women.” She estimates
that there are more than 900 premises in Bosnia where sex can be
bought.
Richard
Monk, a former senior British policeman who ran the U.N. police
operation in Bosnia until 1999, said: “There were truly dreadful
things going on by U.N. police officers from a number of countries. I
found it incredible that I had to set up an internal affairs
department to investigate complaints that officers were having sex
with minors and prostitutes.
“The
British officers were on the whole extremely good and very
professional, setting a great example. But there were policemen from
other countries who should not have been in uniform.”
The
tribunal was told that a senior U.N. official, Dennis Laducer, was
caught in one of the most notorious brothels. Laducer, Deputy
Commissioner of the International Police Task Force, was investigated
by U.N. human rights officers and is no longer with the mission, the
paper said.
The
ruling will cause further embarrassment to the U.N. over the behavior
of its peacekeepers.
In
March, investigators disclosed that British aid workers and the U.N.
contingent in Sierra Leone were demanding sex from teenage refugees in
exchange for food and money.
The
U.N.’s refugee agency, which carried out the inquiry, told of “a
shameful catalogue of sexual abuse”.
Bolkovac,
a mother of three who now lives in The Netherlands, said that she was
elated by the tribunal’s ruling. “Now I hope to gain more
international exposure for this problem,” she said.
She
was posted to Sarajevo in 1999 to investigate the traffic in young
women from Eastern Europe.
“When
I started collecting evidence from the victims of sex-trafficking, it
was clear that a number of U.N. officers were involved from several
countries, including quite a few from Britain,” she said.
“I
was shocked, appalled and disgusted. They were supposed to be over
there to help, but they were committing crimes themselves. But when I
told the supervisors they didn’t want to know”. Two Britons, a
U.N. peacekeeper and a policeman, have been sent home after
allegations involving the sex trade. Both are being investigated.
Bolkovac
said that she witnessed frightened young women given exotic dance
costumes by club owners, who told them they had to perform sex acts on
customers, including U.N. personnel, to pay for the outfits.
“The
women who refused were locked in rooms and food and outside contact
was withheld for days or weeks. After this time they were told to
dance naked on table tops and sit with clients, recommending the
person buy a bottle of champagne for DM200, which includes a room and
‘escort’.
“If
the women still refuse to perform sex acts with the customers, they
are beaten and raped in the rooms by the bar owners and their
associates. They are told if they go to the police they will be
arrested for prostitution and being an illegal immigrant.”
Bolkovac
said that DynCorp wanted her removed because her work was threatening
its “lucrative contract” to supply officers to the U.N. mission.
DynCorp said that she was dismissed for gross misconduct.
During
the hearing DynCorp admitted that it had dismissed three officers for
using prostitutes. Since 1998, eight DynCorp employees have been sent
home from Bosnia; none has been prosecuted.
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