A New Scandal on the Involvement of UN in Trafficking in Women

A Suspicious Dismissal of an "Exhausted" Policewoman

AIM Sarajevo, June 19, 2001

The top ranks of the UN Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) were seriously shaken last week when the news agency Associated Press published a story about a case of an American female member of the International Police Task Force (IPTF) who was fired because she allegedly warned of the involvement of UN staff in the organised trade in women. For her interviews with women victims of organised trafficking the American policewoman, Kathryn Bolkovac, as an UN human rights investigator, learned that her colleagues were the customers of various brothels all over Bosnia and Herzegovina, and even deeply involved in sex trade.

According to the Associated Press (AP) reports, last year she was demoted to a lower rank and this April finally dismissed after she had submitted a report in which she claimed that the IPTF policemen forged documents for the purpose of trafficking in women, helped transfer them across the border into B&H and informed in advance brothel owners of the planned police raids. According to the international community sources, policewoman Bolkovac joined IPTF in June 1999, after she applied for a position advertised by a private firm DynCorp, which for the needs of the American Government hires former policemen to serve abroad.

In October 2000, while she worked as an officer in charge of equality of sexes in the UN Office for Human Right, by e-mail Bolkovac forwarded a warning message to some dozen addresses in the UN Mission. In it she informed of the true proportions of the trafficking in women in B&H. On the top of her list of recipients were the Chief of UN Mission in B&H, Jacques Paul Klein (Special Representative of the UN Secretary General) and General Vincent Coeureroy (the IPTF Commissioner).

In her message which she entitled: "Not to be read by those with a weak stomach or guilty feelings" Bolkovac criticised her colleagues for calling the victims of trafficking "prostitutes", for shutting their eyes to this kind of crime or even directly participating in it. On the basis of interviews with 85 women, she described the torture and rape they had to suffer and mentioned "some locals, SFOR, IPTF and police members, as well as the staff of international humanitarian organisations in B&H" as brothel clients".

"It is high time to realise that this is a seriously organised crime, which brings large profits in this country", warned Bolkovac her colleagues from the police. "If some of you do not want to have anything to do with these 'prostitutes', maybe they should consider doing a 'real' police work by speaking to these women and finding out something about arms and drugs traded by owners of these bars. I have taken this job for the same reasons you have. The pay seemed good, as well as the experience after so many years of work in the police. And, of course, there was some humanitarian 'stuff' that we talked about at the interview, as well as how to help train the local police. But, guess what? When I came, I found out that a regular policeman was in charge of reporting crimes, interviewing the victims, collecting evidence and working overtime. When we finish the mission, we shall leave with our pockets full of money and our breasts full of decorations, which we would have never got in our own countries. We will have a bunch of important titles added in our resumes. Some of us will leave here same as they came, apart from having had a chance to help some of the "prostitutes" to get out of a dangerous and desperate situation. We cannot change their lives, we cannot be certain that they will not again become 'prostitutes', but we can be sure that we have not turned a blind eye to this and became indifferent to this problem. They can accuse us of thinking with our hearts instead with our heads, but at least we were able to think," wrote the policewoman.

Wanting to point to the lack of will to face the problems, policewoman Bolkovac ironically reminded her colleagues of the definition of major roles in women trafficking which clearly show the difference between "prostitutes" who voluntarily practice this profession, and "victims of trafficking" who are tortured and forced into it. Just before sending this message, the policewoman was recommended for the extension of her contract because she was very good in her investigations. However, late that same month, IPTF Deputy Commissioner Mike Stiers told her that she was psychologically worn out. She was transferred to the IPTF Office in the Sarajevo suburb Butmir, where she was demoted and transferred to telex service. Also, she was no longer in charge of human rights issues. In mid April this year, she was definitely fired.

"I was shocked, amazed and disgusted when I saw what was happening," said the dismissed policewoman to the AP press agency. "Those responsible in the Mission did not want to hear about this. They much rather looked the other way and turned a blind eye to evidence." However, the UN explanation said that the firm DynCorp, as her employer, fired Kathryn Bolkovac and informed the UN Mission of that, because she had allegedly lied about her working hours. Allegedly she was not at work the day she filed her report on the number of working hours she had put in.

But, according to the available information, on that day Bolkovac was with Ambassador Klein and other UN staff waiting for a plane on the Vienna Airport. According to these claims, the firm found an excuse to fire her although the reasons were unfounded. "According to what they told us in the DynCorp firm, it wasn't like that at all", said Douglas Coffman, spokesman for the UN in Sarajevo. "She lied to her boss and DynCorp firm about her working hours. And that was not the first time she did it." Coffman also expressed his doubts in the truthfulness of the claim that the UN Mission demoted her to a lower position after she had sent her message of warning to her colleagues. He pointed out that during the Mission, it was customary for the UN staff to change positions several times and that it did not have to be the case of demotion.

"She protested against IPTF for not undertaking sufficient internal control measures. We disagree with her", added the spokesman. "Well, we are an organisation which is harshest whenever we have a case of our own staff frequenting brothels. In B&H that is not a criminal offence, but irrespective of that we think it immoral for our policemen to visit places where crime is involved since that is against the code of conduct of IPTF members. The UN Mission has discharged 24 policemen for inappropriate conduct." Coffman said that punishment of policemen who commit criminal offences was the responsibility of their Governments. After internal investigation, the UN Mission sends a report on the possible committed criminal offence to the Headquarters of national police contingents and central UN Headquarters in New York, which refers these reports to national missions within the UN.

However, the AP report clearly showed that Bolkovac was not the only one to point to the UN involvement in this crime. An American policeman David Lamb, who in the past two years worked in central Bosnia as UN human rights investigator, claimed that he and his colleagues regularly sent evidence of bad conduct to the UN Internal Control Mission and always received the answer that "they should not get involved too much". Lamb told the AP that at the end of his term, in April, he organised an investigation on the basis of information received from six women who claimed that they had been forced into prostitution. "They gave us a whole list of IPTF members who were involved". "The opposition of the central Mission Headquarters was unbelievable. They were playing dirty and the investigators were harassed. I tried to trace back the corruption, but could not get any support." AP also quoted Lamb's claims on the involvement of a Romanian IPTF member whose wife was running a brothel and with whom he forced many young Romanian girls into prostitution.

The AP report reminded of a local police raid, which was carried out with the IPTF assistance in early November, 2000 in Prijedor when 33 women (including some 14-year-old girls) were discovered in night bars.

"A day after the story took an unexpected turn. The club owner Milorad Milakovic told the press that the IPTF ordered the raid only after he refused to pay USD 10,000 as protection racket", reminded the AP story. "Milakovic said that six IPTF policemen, including two Americans, were frequent guests of his bars. These six left the organisation before UN concluded the investigation, which determined that their conduct had been "inappropriate"." AP quoted Madeleine Rees, Chief of the Sarajevo UN Office of Human Rights saying that talks with women victims of the trafficking showed that 30 percent of brothel customers were members of the international staff. It was noted that the clientele included the SFOR members and that six OHR officers were found in a brothel during a raid.

To an explicit question how did Ambassador Klein react to Kathryn Bolkovac's message, because he was the first to receive it, spokesman Coffman replied that the message had not been sent only to Klein, but to some dozen addresses in the UN Mission in B&H. "Many have reacted well to this message, because we are all concerned with the problem of trafficking in women. But others were not so pleased with her claim that we were not doing enough, as much time is devote to the fight against this type of crime. Well, until now the UN Mission has managed to save and return home some 300 victims of trafficking in women," said Coffman.

It is not clear from this what have Klein and IPTF headquarters actually done, apart from seemingly accepting as a fact that this was just a reaction of a "psychologically worn out" policewoman. Or, perhaps, they wanted to remove a diligent worker because they wanted to avoid the fuss that this case has made. The scandal broke at the time when Ambassador Klein was submitting a report to the General Assembly of the United Nations Organisation on the work of the UN Mission to B&H in the previous period. He was undoubtedly showered with questions there. It is unclear whether his answers will be enough for the UN?

Vladimir MIHOVILIC

(AIM Sarajevo)