Trafficking in Kosovo - case studies

Hundreds of women have been trafficked into Kosovo since the international community took over the administration of the province.

Going home

Sitting in the increasingly crowded safe house, that was established by the OSCE and its partners, Irena was awaiting repatriation. She was one of the several hundred women who have taken advantage of the repatriation programme for trafficked women in Kosovo, being carried out by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in conjunction with the OSCE.

Sabena's eyes were full of pain. The process of repatriation was set out in front of her by the OSCE Mission in Kosovo's trafficking specialist. A ticket home, on a plane not a bus; travel papers provided. Someone to meet her; someone to help her re-establish her life. She had three children at home in the Romanian town she came from, three children she said she missed with a passion.

Sabena, too, had been trafficked to Kosovo. She did not have the money to get home herself - to get travel papers, to obtain a ticket, to restart her life. Even if she could safely leave Kosovo and safely return home. The offer from the OSCE and IOM was highly tempting.

But fear and a desperate need prevailed. Sabena said she would stay. If she went home she would be faced with possible revenge from the trafficking gangs and with continued poverty. If she stayed at least there was the possibility that she might make some money, and that the people who trafficked her would start to pay her something.

Trafficking to Kosovo

There have been hundreds of women trafficked into Kosovo since the international community took over the administration of the Yugoslav province in 1999. The women come largely from some of the poorest OSCE member states, with Moldova being a prime, but not exclusive, recruiting ground. Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria also provide women for an ever-demanding market.

More recently, OSCE trafficking specialists have seen an increase of women being trafficked from Serbia proper and now are seeing women and girls coming from within Kosovo itself. "A typical story is that of Katerina, a nurse from Moldova who's earning 20DM a month," said Robin Lerner, the OSCE Mission in Kosovo's Gender and Trafficking Adviser. "She's got kids. She sees an ad in the paper to be a waitress in Italy and she goes for it.

"Katerina's taken through Romania, through Serbia. At some stage someone takes her passport. She's taken to an apartment where there are other women. She's got no idea what is happening. No one's told her anything. She still believes she's going to Italy.

"But the next time she's moved she has to walk for hours, at night. More people come and speak a language she does not recognise - Albanian. Then she finds herself not in Italy, but in a brothel in Kosovo."

Harsh conditions

The conditions in the estimated 85 brothels in Kosovo vary. In some the women are beaten. Sometimes the men who have bought the women rape them. In some the women are drugged. "We have heard stories from Serbian victims from Serbia proper of particularly harsh conditions. Of being drugged, beaten and forced to drink a lot of alcohol to make them compliant," said Lerner.

Sometimes the women are kept locked in all day. And for those who can go out they face a hostile environment in which they are isolated. As speakers of Slavic languages, they cannot communicate with the majority Albanian population and did endanger their lives if they would so, such is the hostility still to Slavic-speakers.

But this is not just an issue which involved women from the outside. Increasingly those working with trafficked women are finding internal trafficking is taking place. Girls are kidnapped, or at times sold by their families, and forced into prostitution.

The lack of a developed social welfare system makes their reintegration into society, once they have been found, very difficult; the Centres for Social Welfare which are responsible for child welfare are overwhelmed with other issues and often cannot deal with something so sensitive. Nor is there any way in which those who want to return home can be offered complete protection from the gangs who took them.

Forced labour

Not all trafficked women are forced into prostitution, although this does form the majority of cases. Some work in bars, others are forced to work as cleaners or in other menial jobs. They are, however, still forced to work against their will or in conditions they did not consent to, often have their passports taken from them and generally receive little or no payment for their work. They are contemporary European slaves.

Some do eventually earn some money - and it is this which encourages some to stay. "The women first have to pay off the debt of bringing them here", said Lerner. "This can sometimes mean a pimp forcing a woman to work ten times a night."

"Sometimes the women find that every time they eat their debt gets bigger. Sometimes they are charged for the places they are living in. But eventually they do pay off the debt and then, if they are not resold - thus incurring another debt -- they can start to get a small proportion of the money they are earning.

"If a woman can earn 300DM here in a month, she may think that it is better than earning nothing at home."

Limited options

The options for trafficked women are limited. If they get out of the environment in which they are held - either because the premises has been raided by the police or because they have escaped -- they are in unknown and often hostile territory. If they have escaped, there is often the question of where to go to; whether they have the courage to go to the police and ask for help; whether by chance they know of the IOM repatriation programme and that there is an OSCE-sponsored safe house.

The OSCE Mission in Kosovo has been supporting this safe house run by an international NGO, for some of the women who do break out from the trafficking ring. But it is only for those who have chosen to be repatriated. It provides temporary shelter for 15 people; at the moment more than 20 are there, with some women sleeping on the floor. The only alternative place to house them is the women's prison in Lipljane near Pristina and this is a very limited option.

If the place they are working has been raided the women are still vulnerable, possibly facing charges of prostitution or having entered Kosovo illegally. Their papers have been taken by those who trafficked them. If the legal case they are involved in does involve trafficking charges, they then have to have the courage to face their former captors in the courtroom and accuse them of kidnapping or trafficking, of human exploitation.

Assistance programmes

IOM runs a programme to repatriate women, offering some assistance to women on their return home. The OSCE Mission in Kosovo has been involved in 23 emergency repatriations and also provides some limited reintegration assistance to the people it does repatriate.

One of the priorities of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo now is to try to develop a witness protection programme for trafficked women. Under the present system, there is almost no protection for the women who do get to court or for those who return home. The main problem is the huge role played by organized crime in trafficking of women. Women who testify in open court are publicly accusing those criminals; if they return home they could face those very criminals who organized their move in the first place.

But witness protection programmes are expensive and complicated; at the moment in Kosovo those who qualify are usually involved in political cases; not cases where people have been trafficked.

Few women are as lucky as Tanja, a young Serb woman, who escaped from her traffickers and found protection and temporary work with the NATO-led troops in Kosovo, KFOR. In an exceptional procedure she was moved from there to another country under another name. Tanja was able to start a new life.

*Note: All names of trafficking victims have been changed