Content area
Full text
More and more women from Central and Eastern Europe are being brought to Kosovo for prostitution, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). "We know of at least 30 women who have been trafficked, but we suspect that the numbers could be much higher", says IOM spokesman Jean-Philippe Chauzy, adding that several hundred women may be involved. "These women almost exclusively are not from Kosovo or Albania. They are ... from Central and Eastern Europe."
In early February, 12 young women were rescued by international troops from a nightclub at Slatina, near the Pristina airport. Their duties involved dispensing sexual favours, at 200 deutsche mark (DM) an hour, to foreign clients and wealthy Kosovars. The women were supposed to dance in erotic lingerie in front of their clients and then were taken to rooms upstairs for sex. According to one girl who did not disclose her name, the number of clients a woman had to service per night could have been as high as 12. She also said that the owner of the place had disappeared with all the money he promised to pay the girls. The women have since been repatriated.
"The situation these girls were in can only be described as horrendous", says Sandra Mitchell, Head of Human Rights at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Office...