| Population: 3,922,205
Population Growth Rate: 1.38%
Birth Rate: 12.86 births/1,000 population
Life Expectancy: total population: 71.75 years; male: 69.04 years; female: 74.65 years
Literacy Rate: NA
Net Migration Rate: 8.91 migrants/1,000 population
Unemployment Rate: 35–40%
Gross Domestic Product per Capita: US$1,700
Religions: Muslim 40%, Orthodox 31%, Roman Catholic 15%, Protestant 4%, other 10%
Languages: Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian
Ethnic Groups: Serb 31%, Bosniak 44%, Croat 17%, Yugoslav 5.5%, other 2.5% (1991 estimate)
Capital: Sarajevo |
Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country of destination for women trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation. As of July 2001, the International Organization for Migration had rescued and repatriated 329 women who had been trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation.[1] The United Nations (UN) mission in Bosnia and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights have handled 40 cases of suspected trafficking, involving 182 women, including 5 girls under 18 years of age.[2] In 2000, the UN helped repatriate 260 trafficked women.[3] Local and UN police officials revealed that 25 percent of the women working in nightclubs claimed to have been forced into prostitution. Of those who were forced into prostitution, 10 percent were girls under 18 years of age. Most had been trafficked from other eastern European countries, primarily poverty-stricken Romania and Moldova.[4] Bosnian authorities turned down 283 immigration applications over an 8-month period, from July 2000 to March 2001. Most of these applicants were declined because they were linked to trafficking.[5] Police raided 38 brothels throughout Bosnia on the night of 3 March 2001, arresting 223 people involved in prostitution and human trafficking. Of the 177 women in prostitution who were detained, most were from Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, and Russia.[6] During a police raid on a nightclub in Sarajevo on 30 October 2000, 12 victims of trafficking were discovered.[7] In the Bosnian Serb town of Prijedor, six UN officers raided three night bars and rescued 37 women in prostitution. Most of those women were from Romania and Moldova. UN officials took them to Sarajevo, from where they were repatriated. There were no charges pressed against the owners of the bars and no bars were closed after the raids.[8] Trafficking of women has noticeably increased with the presence of the UN peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Many reports have suggested that the UN has covered up the involvement of UN police task forces in human trafficking.[9] Held by the UN War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague in February 2001, trials of war crimes focused on sex crimes committed by Bosnian Serb soldiers during the 1992–1995 conflict. Six UN officers resigned after being threatened with disciplinary action by the UN for conducting unauthorized operations.[10] The UN dismissed an American officer for procuring a Moldavian woman in prostitution in a brothel in Sarajevo for the sum of US$2,900.[11]
A former UN officer is suing British security firm DynCorp Aerospace, a British subsidiary of the U.S. Company DynCorp Incorporated, under the United Kingdom’s Public Interest Disclosure Act. The suit claims that DynCorp officials forged documents for trafficked women to aid their illegal transport into Bosnia.[12]
Allegations against certain soldiers from the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) accused them of involvement in a child prostitution network in Sarajevo. In 1998, El Mundo reported that certain Italian, Portuguese, and Egyptian NATO soldiers based in Sarajevo forced 12- to 14-year-old girls to have sex with them. NATO dismissed the allegations as soon as they were published and soon after NATO closed its investigation.[13] Located near the borders of Yugoslavia and Croatia, the Arizona Market is a black market trade center where much of the prostitution trading within Bosnia takes place.[14] From Arizona Market, also a main transit point for trafficked women entering Bosnia, women are sold to various nightclubs and bars throughout Bosnia.[15] Arizona Market is believed to have the biggest slave market in Europe.[16] Bosnia is a country of destination for trafficked women from Bulgaria, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine.[17] One route moves women from Hungary through Serbia to Bosnia and Herzegovina.[18] Another route begins in Romania and goes through Serbia to Bosnia and Herzegovina.[19] A third route begins in Timisoara, Romania, and goes through Belgrade, Yugoslavia, to Bosnia and Herzegovina.[20] Prostitution is not considered a criminal offense in Bosnia, but it is prohibited by the law on public order, which punishes a person in prostitution by imprisonment of up to 60 days. The law imposes the same penalty on anyone who “induces a person into prostitution.”[21] The Criminal Code prohibits slavery, the transportation of enslaved persons,[22] and the procurement[23] and recruitment of a person for the purpose of prostitution.[24] The code also prohibits sexual intercourse with a juvenile[25] and sexual intercourse by abuse of position.[26] The law does not provide for any protection for victims of trafficking and does not include any provisions for witness protection. The constitution prohibits forced labor or servitude. The minimum age for employment is 16 years. Bosnia has ratified the International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention (105) on the Abolition of Forced Labor; the UN Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery; the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution, and Child Pornography; and the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. Bosnia has signed the UN International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. However, Bosnia has not ratified the ILO Convention (182) to Eliminate the Worst Forms of Child Labor. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] “New Special Units to Help Fighting Against Trafficking”, Associated Press, 30 July 2001 [2] “UN, SFOR Involved in Bosnian Prostitution,” Reuters (Sarajevo), 18 May 2001. [3] “UN Shuts Brothels in Bosnia, Frees 177 from Sexual Slavery,” Washington Post, 7 March 2001. [4] “New Special Units to Help Fighting against Trafficking,” Associated Press, 30 July 2001. [5] “Bosnian Government Steps Up Border Control to Curb Illegal Immigration, Trade,” BBC Monitoring Europe—Political, 11 May 2001. [6] “Bosnia: Police Launch Largest Raid Yet on Human Traffickers,” UN Wire, 5 March 2001. [7] “Bosnia: Captive Women Found in Raid on Sarajevo Night Club,” Reuters, 11 November 2000. [8] “37 Romanians, Moldavians Forced into Prostitution in Bosnia,” Agence France Presse, 15 November 2001. [9] “UN Targets Bosnian Vice Rings,” BBC News, 2 August 2001. [10] “Sex Trafficking: UN Police Officers Resign after Raid,” UN Wire, 30 November 2000. [11] “Misconduct, Corruption by US Police Mar Bosnia Mission,” Washington Post, 29 May 2001. [12] Antony Barnett and Solomon Hughes, “British Firm Accused in UN ‘Sex Scandal’: International Police in Bosnia Face Prostitution Claims,” Observer, 28 July 2001.
[13] “NATO Investigators Find No Evidence of Child Prostitution,” AP Worldstream, 25 August 1998. [14] “Serious Problem of Women Trafficking and Prostitution in Bosnia: UN,” Agence France Presse, 19 May 2000. [15] “Slave Trade Thrives in Bosnia,” Stop-Traffic, 8 March 2001. [16] “Women for Sale,” Red Pepper, 23 August 2000. [17] “Serious Problem of Women Trafficking and Prostitution in Bosnia: UN,” Agence France Presse, 19 May 2000. [18] Ibid. [19] Ibid. [20] Jean Chauzy, “Bosnia & Herzegovina: Trafficking,” Stop-Traffic, 8 March 2001. [21] Article 2, para. 20 [22] Article 167. [23] Article 228. [24] Article 229. [25] Article 224. [26] Article 225. | 
