Hopes Betrayed. Trafficking of Women and Girls to Post-Conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina for Forced Prostitution
- Document number
- 1905
- Date
- 2002
- Title
- Hopes Betrayed. Trafficking of Women and Girls to Post-Conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina for Forced Prostitution
- Author/publisher
- Human Rights Watch
- Availability
- View/save PDF version of this document
- Document type(s)
- Research/Study/Analysis,
- Keywords
- Volume 14 No. 9 (D), Violence, Human rights violation, Crime against humanity, War crime, Armed conflict, Post-conflict situation, Terrorism, Sex tourism, Pornography, Domestic violence, Prostitution, Rape, Sexual harassment,
- Summary
- In an investigation from 1999 through 2001, Human Rights Watch uncovered conclusive evidence of widespread trafficking of women and girls into the sex industry throughout both Bosnian entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska. Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed five trafficking victims from Ukraine, Romania, and Moldova and reviewed thirty-one other trafficking cases obtained from NGOs, court documents, and verbatim victim statements to identify trends and common abuses along the trafficking chain. Researchers obtained: twelve verbatim (or handwritten), signed transcripts of victims' interviews by IPTF officers after a series of well-publicized raids in Prijedor in November 2000; five sworn witness statements provided under oath by trafficking victims to local courts in criminal cases; twelve case summaries provided by Lara, an anti-trafficking NGO in Bijeljina; and two IPTF case summaries drawn from official, confidential IPTF incident reports. Human Rights Watch also interviewed dozens of UNMIBH officials, IPTF officers, representatives of international organizations, leaders of NGOs, as well as Bosnian judges, prosecutors, and police officers. In addition, Human Rights Watch reviewed hundreds of pages of documents, both open source and internal UNMIBH and U.S. military documents.
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