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VI. LOCAL POLICE INVOLVEMENT IN TRAFFICKING

Direct Links to Trafficking of Women and Girls
Trafficking in persons flourishes in conditions of state complicity and with the involvement of state officials. Human Rights Watch uncovered evidence of such corruption among local police in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Some police officers accepted money or free sexual services from traffickers and bar/brothel owners in exchange for protection. As noted above, others gave bar/brothel owners tip-offs before raids, allowing the owners to hide under-age girls and women without documents. A small number of police officers participated in trafficking directly as owners or staff of bars and brothels. Finally, some trafficking victims alleged that officials in the foreigners' departments in some police stations engaged in document fraud, facilitating trafficking. Testimony provided to Human Rights Watch by UNMIBH and NGOs indicated that local police officers who engaged in trafficking-related crimes rarely faced disciplinary or criminal charges.

Police As Bar/Brothel Owners and Traffickers
Human Rights Watch investigated six cases, initially reported by NGOs and the IPTF, in which individual police officers directly participated in trafficking, either as owners of bars and nightclubs or as purchasers of women. Direct police involvement came to light through the testimony of trafficking victims who escaped from brothels.
In a criminal case in Doboj, a Ukrainian trafficking victim testified that she and a friend were purchased in November 1998 by two men, one of whom was a police officer. The police officer and his colleague drove the women to a bar called "Silent Night," gave them condoms, and assigned them to rooms "especially designated for sex."108 Forced to dance in lingerie (which she was also forced to pay for), the woman testified that she had sex with four clients each night.109

An IPTF officer in Brcko told Human Rights Watch of an investigation in 1999 into police involvement in the purchase of two Romanian women. The local football (soccer) club, which boasted several police officers as members, owned the nightclub into which the women were trafficked.110 In that case, the chief of police arranged for a raid of the premises and launched an investigation.111

In one of the rare cases in which an official faced criminal charges for trafficking, a Banja Luka police officer, Goran Vasilic, in 2001 received a sentence of one year and three months for transporting women across international borders for the purpose of forcing them into prostitution, in violation of Article 188 of the RS criminal code.112

Police As Employees of Establishments Holding Trafficked Women and Girls
According to IPTF officers, internal IPTF documents, and NGO sources, local police sometimes moonlighted as employees of establishments holding trafficked women and girls. These officers guarded the women and girls, occasionally facilitated financial transactions, and made escape by the women all but impossible. An investigation into a brothel in Doboj in 1999, supervised by IPTF, revealed that one local police officer was working there as a waiter.113 In another case, a victim of trafficking told IPTF human rights investigators that a policeman served as bartender in the brothel in Vukovijc where she was forced to work.114

Police Complicity and Corruption: Bribes and Freebies
Local uniformed police officers accepted bribes or free sexual services in exchange for protecting-or just overlooking the illegality of-brothels. An internal affairs investigator with experience investigating local police involvement in trafficking told Human Rights Watch:

      The deputy chief and chief of police [of Bijeljina] get payoffs and girls whenever they want and for as long as they want. The chief of uniformed police knows about this and is also involved. He appoints the patrols-where to go and what to see. There are eighteen local police fingered by photos shown to thirteen girls who are victims of trafficking. This is just from two clubs. This was [in February 2001].115

Celhia de Lavarene, director of the STOP, alerted Human Rights Watch to a similar case in Kiseljak: "The chief of police gives tip-offs to the owners in exchange for free sex. We interviewed a lot of women and they told us that the chief of police goes to the bars and warns the owners."116 In the same canton, de Lavarene found evidence that twenty-five police officers had some involvement in trafficking, with some receiving freebies or bribes.117 In one 2002 case, a police officer serving as the local STOP team leader received free sexual services in exchange for information on possible raids.118

To trafficked women and girls, the presence of police as clients and "friends" of the owners ensured that they could not turn to the authorities for help. An expert from IOM told Human Rights Watch:

      The local police is one of the main user groups-we proved that through interviews [with the trafficking victims]. There are close connections to the bar owners and the traffickers. The women have nowhere to turn, and the police are the main user group. So who can they turn to?... The local police don't pay, but they look away. This is very serious. I don't know of a single case of a police officer who was tried.119

The women and girls in the clubs realized that the police received money as well. A trafficking victim, E.E., from Moldova told Human Rights Watch, "He [the owner of the brothel] paid the police. [The owners] can deport us, and they can sell us. I did not think that the police could help.... [The owner] paid 3,700 Deutschmarks (€1,897/U.S.$1,712) for me. I paid the whole debt, and he paid the police."120

Testimony from women trafficked into Prijedor also raised allegations of police officers' complicity. According to seven of the trafficked women released in raids in Prijedor in November 2000121-whose verbatim testimony Human Rights Watch obtained-police officers and inspectors, both in and out of uniform, visited the clubs frequently for free sexual services. Some of the women recognized the inspectors from their visits to the police station to acquire visas and work permits in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As one trafficked woman told IPTF investigators, "Inspector Mirko was also a regular customer, and I had to serve him for free because my patron Milka ordered me [to do] so."122 Another trafficked woman, aged eighteen, told investigators, "I have slept with a policeman whose name I don't know, but he was a close friend with Milka [the owner] and he wasn't from Prijedor.... I saw him when I went for my visa."123

One trafficking victim in a separate case testified that she was forced to have sex with a police officer. The IPTF officer who handled the case told Human Rights Watch:

      Sometimes their clients are also local police officers.... Three days ago [March 18, 2001], we handled a complaint of a police officer who raped a woman. At the court hearing she claimed that she was a virgin and was sold to the police officer [from] the Banja Luka station.... The owner of the nightclub [held her for] ten days, and then she was forced to give sexual services to a police officer.124

Occasionally, local police found themselves swept up in raids by other precincts. One IPTF officer in Sarajevo told Human Rights Watch, "We caught local police in the last raid at the Como [in March 2001]. They were waiting for the owner because they get it [sex] for free. The owner had a book with a list of whom he gave free sex to...."125 The local police initiated disciplinary proceedings against the police officers caught in the raid.126

In some cases, police simply colluded with nightclub owners. One senior IPTF official described events the night of the nationwide "Operation Makro" (the Bosnian word for "pimp") that consisted of raids on clubs carried out by the Bosnian government in March 2001:

      What a mess it was. We were supposed to be briefed at 10 p.m., and the briefing was postponed until midnight. It was a ragtag group of street police officers... I got to the police station [after the raids]. The bar owners and employees stood in the hall talking to the local police. I said to the chief of the criminal investigation division that the women could not feel safe with the owners and employees socializing with the local police in the hall. The women had to walk through them in the hall. There was a lack of awareness and a lack of security. The women were completely unprotected.127

Police Visitors to the Nightclubs
Prostitution is illegal in both Republika Srpska and the Federation. When police engaged even in paid sexual services, trafficking victims realized that their "owners" could operate with impunity. Local police officials told Human Rights Watch that officers were forbidden to enter the nightclubs. Safet Huseinovic, the chief of police in Zivinice, told investigators:

      Our police cannot enter "Nimfa" [a nightclub under investigation for trafficking], especially not in uniform. In order to collect information, we engage informers, or we do surveillance. For me, as the chief of police, the biggest sin is to go to the bar in uniform. They cannot go to "Nimfa" and such places. It is happening, and it is terrible. These are unforgivable errors. The police have a special role in society.128

Despite internal prohibitions, uniformed police were commonly seen at bars and nightclubs, drinking and meeting with owners. In October 2002, the UNMIBH spokeswoman, Kirsten Haupt, announced that UNMIBH had found that eleven local police officers-including a STOP team leader-had used sexual services in the nightclubs.129 An IPTF officer in Livno reported seeing more than twenty local police officers in uniform in the bars,130 and other IPTF officers had similar accounts. The officers' mere presence made it nearly impossible for trafficked women in the bars to appeal to the local police for assistance. An IPTF regional human rights officer told Human Rights Watch, "I went on a nightclub inspection... when an off duty officer was on the premises....The police go and have drinks there-they are not supposed to be there in uniform, and the girls don't know what is an official visit and what is not official."131

A trafficking victim from Romania informed IPTF that she "recognized a local police officer, who works at Banja Luka Local Police Station #2, as a customer at the nightclub and that he had taken a girl to a room for sex."132 In another case, a Romanian trafficking victim turned over photos of a local traffic officer in uniform in the bar "Hooters" posing with a sex worker from the bar.133

One woman, trafficked from Ukraine, reported that police held a party at "Silent Night," the club where she was forced to provide sexual services to clients. According to sworn testimony she gave in a criminal case in Doboj in 1998:

    About a month ago, a lot of policemen came to the bar to celebrate the birth of a baby girl to one of the policemen. Since that man had already spent all of his money, Djordje [the owner and also a police officer] paid for him to have sex with J.K. [a woman trafficked into Republika Srpska] for half an hour.134

Tip-offs about Raids
Trafficked women told Human Rights Watch that owners knew exactly when local police raids would take place,135 confirming reports from the anti-trafficking NGO Lara and IPTF investigators. Tip-offs allowed the owners to hide trafficked under-age girls as well as trafficked women for whom they had not procured false documents. In one case in Tuzla in June 2000, nightclub owners arranged to close the bars two hours before the raid was due to begin. An official IPTF report concluded, "It was clear that although few people knew, someone had leaked. [Later] one prostitute identified LP [a local police officer] in a line-up."136

Mara Radovanovic, the director of Lara, described a February 2001 case in which five young women fled by taxi from a nightclub to the SFOR base at Ugljevik when their "owner" was out of town. Lara took the women into their temporary shelter and asked them why they had gone to the SFOR base and not to the police. The women told Lara that the nightclub owner received warning of all raids and distributed passports to the women prior to the arrival of police. Those without passports, he hid in the attic. The women believed they could not trust the police.137

In some regions, local police themselves acknowledged that tip-offs occurred. An August 2000 internal local police report from Tuzla canton obtained by Human Rights Watch noted that leaks from the Ministry of Interior [the police ministry] forced the police narcotics department to postpone raids planned for June 22, 2000. An internal police investigation uncovered evidence that "some members of SFOR and... members of this Ministry have compromised themselves for nightclub owners or for pimps [by tipping them off about the raid]."138

In a case outlined in the same internal local police document, a Moldovan trafficking victim recognized a police officer who often frequented the nightclub "Harley Davidson" in Gornje Dubrave. According to the internal report, the police officer forced the women to dance naked and had informed the unofficial owner of the club "Atlantis" on one occasion that the police were planning a raid on his club.139

Involvement by Police Foreigners' Departments
The foreigners' department is the police unit responsible for issuing work and residency permits. Police in the Doboj foreigners' department showed Human Rights Watch researchers boxes-each one labeled with the name of a nightclub-storing passports for women and girls from the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries awaiting residence and work permit approval. Vitomir Bradasevic, head of the Doboj foreigners' unit, told Human Rights Watch that in all, 150 foreign women had received permits to work in twenty-three registered nightclubs in Doboj.140

Until recently, owners received permits simply by taking passports to the police station for registration. In March 2001, IPTF officers in Prijedor and Banja Luka initiated a supervised interview process in an effort to identify trafficking victims.141 Accordingly, IPTF arranged to conduct individual interviews (using interpreters) with women requesting work permits, who must now appear in person for a meeting with the local police foreigners' unit. Based upon the interview, IPTF officers then determined whether the woman's application to work in Bosnia and Herzegovina was truly voluntary. In one case, a woman broke down and wept during the interview and alerted IPTF monitors that she had been trafficked.142

Reviewing the period between March 1999 and March 2000, a published UNMIBH report on trafficking criticized local police stations throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina for issuing work permits to nightclub owners for "dancers" and "waitresses" in a country where unemployment soared over 40 percent. Calling this "an obvious ruse of which the police cannot be ignorant," the report also noted that the "dearth of reported cases of trafficking in certain areas of the country with porous borders and known to be under the control of organized crime suggests widespread complicity by the authorities in those regions." 143 A report issued to the U.S. Congress by the United Nations in April 2002 singled out the Bijeljina foreigners' department as particularly corrupt. The document stated, "The High Representative's Office found evidence that the Bijeljina Ministry of Interior Department of Foreigners is systematically facilitating trafficking."144

The power to register foreigners created opportunities for multiple abuses, such as bribery. In mid-2001, the commissioner of the IPTF ordered the de-authorization of the chief of the public security center in Bijeljina for serious violations of law including "issuing residency and work permits to trafficked women... and suspicion of partaking in organized crime in trafficking into Bosnia and Herzegovina."145 The chief of the crime unit in Bijeljina resigned his position before the commissioner could de-authorize him.146 The commissioner also de-authorized an officer in Srebrenik for facilitation of trafficking.147

Fake and Forged Documents
NGO activists, prosecutors, and IPTF monitors expressed disgust and frustration at the document forgeries that routinely passed muster in the foreigners' units. According to Lara's Mara Radovanovic, police officers missed glaring examples of fraud in the cases of two trafficked women who received shelter from Lara:

      Some women have been working for several months. The police give three month working permits, and every three months they go to the police for renewal of permits. Two sisters worked there. The boss made false documents for all Romanian and Moldovan women, and the boss told the police that these two women were sisters. But one had a Romanian passport, the other a Moldovan passport. The police knew that the documents were false.148

IPTF officers expressed similar criticism: "The passports are fake. These guys in the foreigners' office must be blind. A ten-year-old could tell that these passports are fake."149 A prosecutor in Zivinice handed a Human Rights Watch investigator a passport in March 2001. Forgers had removed the original picture from the document, slicing under the lamination, and replaced it with a new photograph. The prosecutor told Human Rights Watch:

      We have testimony of the girl in the passport. According to her testimony, she was kidnapped in Moldova and taken to [the nightclub] `Las Vegas.'... The [owner] put [the Moldovan trafficking victim's] picture in the passport of a girl who was not there during the raid. [The owner] took this fake passport to register [name withheld] with the police, and the police officer did not notice that it was a fake. It's easy to notice. It's strange that he didn't notice.150

In other cases, police pretended not to recognize obviously fake documents or assisted directly in the creation of fraudulent documents. An UNMIBH official who interviewed dozens of trafficking victims told Human Rights Watch,

      I am trying to get two foreigners' department officers fired. They were from PSC [public security center] Prijedor. A seventeen-year-old from Romania had 500 clients, was beaten and maltreated.... I met the girl again, [and she refused to speak to the local police inspector. She told us that] the inspector [went] to the brothel and stamped the passports with the inspectors from the foreigners' department who used the girls for free.151

IPTF and Monitoring the Local Police
In theory, IPTF monitors supervised internal investigations by local police and ensured that corrupt and complicit officers faced disciplinary, and even criminal, proceedings.152 In reality, however, IPTF monitors had minimal impact on internal local police investigations. High turnover among IPTF monitors, combined with the desire to close cases and maintain good relations with local police, stymied supervision of investigations and often precluded follow up on existing cases.153

Pressing local police to investigate their own personnel often met resistance. One IPTF monitor told Human Rights Watch, "In one concrete case the local police were involved in getting false documentation. The girls will say `he's a friend of the owner,' but it's all very vague. There is a lack of will to investigate on the part of the local police."154

Local police exploited IPTF officers' short tenure in country by delaying punitive action against fellow officers. Once an IPTF officer went home or was transferred, disciplinary cases often died. For example, in the case already cited above of a local police officer in Doboj found to have worked as a waiter in a brothel employing trafficked women, the officer, Djordjo Paljic (who was also alleged to have co-owned the establishment),155 was temporarily suspended on August 7, 1998 after an internal investigation. But according to an IPTF human rights monitor in the Doboj station, "For us the local police investigation was a dead end.... The investigation did establish that one Doboj local police officer was working as a waiter at the brothel.... This letter [requesting information on the disciplinary proceedings against Paljic] in February [1999] was the last effort before the [IPTF] officer who was investigating this left."156

According to David Rudderham, an IPTF human rights officer who worked on the case, and who spoke to Human Rights Watch in February 2002, "It should have gone to the prosecutor, but it didn't go any farther at all."157

UNMIBH officials did report the occasional success in establishing accountability for local police: "In Brcko [in 1998] we knew of falsified passports, and we were going after the Bosniacs [Bosnian Muslims] at the bridge who were stamping across the border. High-level Bosniacs were involved up the line, and bribes were paid at the border. A police officer was covering up for this. The deputy chief of police and four to eight other police were removed."158 The perpetrators who had bribed the border officials then trafficked the women into nightclubs in the area. By October 2002, UNMIBH had de-authorized twenty-six local police officers as a result of investigations into allegations related to trafficking, including one STOP team leader.159 In August 2002, under pressure from UNMIBH, the Bosnian Interior Ministry placed twenty-five police officers under investigation for suspected involvement in trafficking.160

108 Testimony of S.K., Republika Srpska, Ministry of the Interior, Center for Public Safety, Doboj, Case number 12-02/1/451/98, June 6, 1998, on file with Human Rights Watch.

109 Ibid.

110 Human Rights Watch interview, Juhe Roine, IPTF HRO, Brcko, March 21, 1999. According to Roine, "There were two Romanian girls held in one place. The local police visited that place. It was owned by the local football [soccer] club. The head of the football club decided to get two girls and make some more money. The local police are members of the football club. The girls came here to the [IPTF] station and said that they were held against their will. They were told that they had to pay back 1,200 Deutschmarks [€615/U.S.$555] each."

111 Human Rights Watch interview, Juhe Roine, IPTF HRO, Brcko, March 21, 1999. The IPTF could not house or care for the two Romanian trafficking victims, so the IPTF monitors chipped in personal funds to send the two women home by bus. As a result, one monitor noted, "Now the case is weak because there are no witnesses. The authorities are not well-prepared to handle this." Under the criminal procedure code, courts could not directly admit testimony provided to police. Without the trafficking victims' presence at the trial, the case would lack testimony from complaining witnesses.

112 Human Rights Watch telephone interview, Satya Tripathi, deputy chief of human rights, UNMIBH, Sarajevo, December 18, 2001.

113 Human Rights Watch interview, Robert Granbeck, IPTF officer, Doboj, March 17, 1999. The women engaged in prostitution in the club had been trafficked and were held in debt bondage in the club, according to John Fitzgerald, a former IPTF officer who interviewed the women. Two of the women did not have their passports. Human Rights Watch telephone interview, John Fitzgerald, December 14, 2001. The police officer was also alleged to have been a co-owner of the brothel. See this chapter, section on IPTF monitoring.

114 Ministry of Interior of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Tuzla Canton, Crime Investigative Department, Narcotics Division, "Information" [internal report], No. 08-01/2-4, August 5, 2000.

115 Human Rights Watch interview, IPTF internal affairs investigator [name withheld], Tuzla, March 22, 2001.

116 Human Rights Watch telephone interview, Celhia de Lavarene, STOP director, Sarajevo, March 14, 2002.

117 Human Rights Watch telephone interview, Celhia de Lavarene, Sarajevo, September 30, 2002. De Laverene told Human Rights Watch that six of the officers would be "de-authorized," or have their authorizations to work as police officers revoked by UNMIBH and forbidden to serve in law enforcement.

118 Ibid. According to an official UNMIBH statement, the officer also sexually abused a number of women in the clubs between January and May 2002, physically assaulting one woman. The officer was criminally charged and spent one month in prison. UNMIBH press conference transcript, Sarajevo, October 17, 2002, at http://www.nato.int/sfor/trans/2002/t021017a.htm (retrieved October 18, 2002).

119 Human Rights Watch telephone interview, IOM official [name withheld], Sarajevo, July 3, 2001.

120 Human Rights Watch interview, E.E., Sarajevo, April 10, 2001. The women generally know what the traffickers paid to purchase them because this amount of money becomes the women's debt that they must pay off before regaining their freedom.

121 See also Chapter X, IPTF and Trafficking.

122 Official transcript, testimony to IPTF, Prijedor # 4, November 22, 2000.

123 Official transcript, testimony to IPTF, Prijedor #5, November 22, 2000.

124 Human Rights Watch interview, IPTF human rights officer [name withheld], Bijeljina, March 21, 2001.

125 Human Rights Watch interview, IPTF human rights officer [name withheld], Sarajevo, April 8, 2001.

126 Human Rights Watch is not aware of the outcome of this case although the investigation of the officers was ongoing fully nine months after the raid. Generally, when investigations did move forward, they proceeded extremely slowly. UNMIBH has authority to withdraw the authorization for police officers ("de-authorize") for professional misconduct or human rights violations. Human Rights Watch telephone interview, Satya Tripathi, deputy chief of human rights, UNMIBH, Zurich, December 21, 2001.

127 The group picked up in the raid, mostly Romanian women and girls in their late teens, spent the night at an SFOR base and then gave testimony against the owners before investigative judges in Banja Luka. All qualified for repatriation assistance under the IOM program. Human Rights Watch interview, Janet Bailey, deputy commander, IPTF/Banja Luka, Sarajevo, April 10, 2001.

128 Human Rights Watch interview, Safet Huseinovic, chief of police, Zivinice, April 2, 2001. Huseinovic volunteered this information after Human Rights Watch investigators informed him that they had observed a uniformed police officer at the club "Nimfa" two days earlier.

129 UNMIBH press conference transcript, Sarajevo, October 17, 2002, at http://www/nato.int/sfor/trans/2002/t021017a.htm (retrieved October 18, 2002).

130 Human Rights Watch interview, S.B. Singh, IPTF human rights officer, Livno, March 19, 1999.

131 Human Rights Watch interview, Tom McAndrew, IPTF officer, Banja Luka Regional HQ, March 29, 2001. When IPTF discovers information that local police officers have engaged in human rights abuses, they may file non-compliance reports, documenting serious lapses of duty or violations of the law. Local officers with more than one non-compliance report are automatically considered for "de-authorization." By October 2002, UNMIBH had withdrawn the authorization of twenty-six local police officers for professional conduct directly relating to trafficking, and issued non-compliance reports relating to trafficking for an additional ten officers. The officers' alleged offenses included using the sexual services of women and girls in the nightclubs while off duty, in uniform; trafficking of women; issuing temporary residence permits for undocumented migrants; forced sexual intercourse with a trafficked woman; ownership of a nightclub; facilitating prostitution; warning owners of upcoming raids; selling forged visas; and buying and selling trafficked women. The removal of provisional authorization or "de-authorization" procedure disqualified those officers from participation in any aspect of police work. Human Rights Watch telephone interview, high-level official [name withheld], UNMIBH, Sarajevo, October 30, 2002.

132 Incident Report #01/BLS/066, "Banja Luka (PSC): Internal Investigation."

133 Ministry of Interior of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Tuzla Canton, Crime Investigative Department, Narcotics Division, "Information" [internal report], No. 08-01/2-4, August 5, 2000.

134 Testimony of S.K., Republika Srpska, Ministry of the Interior, Center for Public Safety, Doboj, Case number 12-02/1/451/98, June 6, 1998, on file with Human Rights Watch.

135 Because IPTF human rights officers, and now members of the STOP teams, supervise the raids, owners need the warning in order to hide women without documents. IPTF or STOP questions those women found in the raid, providing an opportunity for women and girls to identify themselves as trafficked.

136 IPTF Incident Report, 00TUZ97, June 12, 2000. Although not explicitly stated in the report, the implication is that she recognized the officer as a client of or visitor to the brothel.

137 Human Rights Watch interview, Mara Radovanovic, director of Lara, Bijeljina, March 22, 2001.

138 Ministry of Interior of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Tuzla Canton, Crime Investigative Department, Narcotics Division, "Information" [internal report], No. 08-01/2-4, August 5, 2000.

139 Ibid.

140 Human Rights Watch interview, Vitomir Bradasevic, chief of foreigners' department, Doboj, March 28, 2001. The vast majority of the women (89) came from Romania; the others from Russia (7), Moldova (37), and Ukraine (17).

141 As of July 26, 2001, this screening program was extended to all foreigners' departments throughout the country. See Transcript, Joint Press Conference, Comments of Satya Tripathi, UNMIBH human rights office, July 26, 2001.

142 The woman, a Romanian, was accepted into the IOM program and repatriated via Sarajevo. Human Rights Watch interview, Tom McAndrew, IPTF human rights officer, Banja Luka, March 29, 2001. According to a report jointly issued by UNICEF, UNHCHR, and OSCE/ODIHR, bar owners have ceased requesting work permits for foreign citizens due to increased police raids on premises with registered foreign workers. UNICEF, UNHCHR, OSCE/ODIHR, "Trafficking in Human Beings in Southeastern Europe," June 2002, p. 64.

143 U.N. Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina Legal and Human Rights office and U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in BiH, "Report on Joint Trafficking Project," May 2000, p. 7, on file with Human Rights Watch. Because of a "lack of clarity" in the work permits law, the Republika Srpska Ministry of Labor ceased issuing or renewing work permits in August 2001. Human Rights Watch telephone interview, Alun Roberts, UNMIBH spokesman, Banja Luka, December 12, 2001.

144 "UNMIBH Background Paper on Efforts Against Human Trafficking," submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives International Relations Committee, April 23, 2002. The UNMIBH initiated an internal investigation into the involvement of Bijeljina police officials.

145 Human Rights Watch telephone interview, Satya Tripathi, deputy chief of human rights, UNMIBH, Zurich, December 21, 2001. As of that date, this was one of only two de-authorizations for trafficking-related offenses. By October 2002, UNMIBH had de-authorized a total of twenty-six officers for trafficking-related infractions.

146 Ibid.

147 Ibid. The officer had his authorization to work as a police officer revoked by UNMIBH.

148 Human Rights Watch interview, Mara Radovanovic, director of Lara, Bijeljina, March 22, 2001.

149 Human Rights Watch interview, IPTF officer [name withheld], Prijedor, March 28, 2001.

150 Human Rights Watch interview, prosecutor, Zivinice, April 6, 2001.

151 Human Rights Watch interview, UNMIBH official [name withheld], Sarajevo, April 9, 2001.

152 Security Council Resolution 1088, December 1996.

153 IPTF also occasionally failed to prevent prosecution of the victims of trafficking. See Chapter VII, Bosnian Government Response, section on prosecution and deportation of trafficking victims.

154 Human Rights Watch interview, Maxwell Woodford, IPTF gender officer, Sarajevo, March 20, 2001.

155 Human Rights Watch telephone interview, David Rudderham, former IPTF officer, February 21, 2002. These allegations came to light when the women identified the police officer from photographs presented to them by IPTF investigators. In addition, an American IPTF officer serving in Livno admitted during the investigation that he had paid this waiter/police officer for sexual services in the club. IPTF investigators located the American IPTF officer after the women produced photos of themselves posing with him.

156 Human Rights Watch interview, Robert Granbeck, IPTF officer, Doboj, March 17, 1999.

157 Human Rights Watch telephone interview, David Rudderham, IPTF human rights officer, February 21, 2002. Rudderham did manage to have the head of the foreigners' office removed from his post for "conspiring with the brothel owners" to procure permits for trafficked women. But, Rudderham noted, the man did not lose his post as a senior police officer, receiving a transfer to another department instead.

158 Human Rights Watch telephone interview, former UNMIBH official, June 14, 2001.

159 UNMIBH, "Background Paper on Efforts Against Human Trafficking," submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives International Relations Committee, April 23, 2002; Human Rights Watch telephone interview, UNMIBH official [name withheld], Sarajevo, October 30, 2002; and UNMIBH press conference transcript, Sarajevo, October 17, 2002, at http://www/nato.int/sfor/trans/2002/t021017a.htm (retrieved October 18, 2002).

160 U.N. news center report, "Twenty-five Bosnian police officers under investigation for prostitution, U.N. mission says," August 29, 2002.

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