-Caveat Lector-
From
1 - http://news.independent.co.uk/world/europe/story.jsp?story=115557
2 -
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=115566
3 -
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=115556
1}}}>Begin
Sex, drugs and illegal migrants: Sarajevo's export trade to Britain
A three-part investigation into the traffic in people and drugs from
Eastern Europe to the UK
By Ian Burrell in Sarajevo
21 January 2002
Internal links
Immigration hit squads to target 500,000 illegal workers
>From the Balkans to brothels in Soho
There are wolves, bears and unexploded mines in the snow-covered elm
and pine forests that divide Bosnia-Herzegovina from the outside
world. Yet the borders of the young state that has become a
springboard for illegal immigration to Britain are so porous that
thousands of people are smuggled through its 432 mostly unmanned
crossing points every month.
The situation is so serious that Tony Blair has persuaded the Bosnian
government to allow a team of British immigration officials to try to
plug the gaps being exploited by international organised crime.
Last week, in a mountain gorge that separates Bosnia from Montenegro,
Steve Parke, a British immigration officer, and Ian Johnston, a
Merseyside police officer, were checking lorries, cars and buses for
signs of people headed illegally for the European Union and Britain.
Mr Johnston, who works for the United Nations as deputy chief of the
Bosnian border service, said: "The border is crossable anywhere. All
1,600 kms [1,000 miles] is passable, depending on how desperate you
are to cross into the next country."
Mafia gangs in Istanbul and Kosovo are exploiting the post-war
destabilisation in the former Yugoslavia, with its weak laws, liberal
visa regimes and widespread corruption, to ferry Turkish, Iranian,
Iraqi, Albanian and Afghan migrants into Europe for �5,000 a head.
A report from the International Organisation for Migration says
120,000 women and child sex workers are trafficked into the European
Union each year. In Bosnia, 34,000 foreign visitors have disappeared
after flying into Sarajevo airport during the past two years. Most
have remained for just a few hours before being taken to the border
by people smugglers.
In his third-floor office in the blue and white United Nations
building overlooking Sarajevo airport, Graham Leese, the project head
of the British-led immigration team, is under no illusions about the
scale of the problem. "For the EU as a whole � and the UK in
particular � the Balkan route has long been identified as the most
productive route in terms of illegal migration flows. It's quite easy
to bribe border guards to turn a blind eye when you are smuggling
across a lorry load of illegal immigrants."
Bosnian organised crime is turning over an estimated �170m a year
and, according to one member of the British team, government
corruption is a major problem. "There are big fish here. They have
massive influence and a lot of them are holding senior positions," he
said. The view is shared by Ian Cliff, the British ambassador in
Sarajevo, who said there was "massive" corruption among government
officials administering the districts and cantons established in
Bosnia after the Dayton Accord in 1995.
"It is basically a country that has not built a proper economy since
the end of the war," he said. "People look to office as a way of
supporting themselves, their families and their extended families."
He said officials were subjected to bribery and threats. "Money is
used very directly to influence the political system. All sorts of
pressures are brought to bear on people through their families and
through threats on their jobs."
The immigration team, made up of seven Britons and a Dane, is trying
to establish the newly-formed Bosnian State Border Service (SBS)
along 1,616km of land border. The SBS now controls 36 of 52
international crossings � the rest are staffed by poorly paid police
� but hundreds of minor crossings are unmanned.
The difficulties for the SBS are apparent at Hum where, 100ft above
the river Drina, a steel bridge spans the snow-covered gorge dividing
Montenegro, in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, from Srpska, the
Serbian sector of Bosnia.
In a hut on the Bosnian side, Jagos Matovic, a border guard, said
people arriving with Turkish passports had only to show they had the
equivalent of �33 for each day of their stay. Most were waved through
by guards who lacked the technology or training to check the
documents.
Mr Johnston said: "A lot of officers think that if people are
transiting into Western Europe that's not a problem for Bosnia. We
have to educate them that it's creating lots of problems and that
Bosnia wants to be part of Europe." Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina and
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia want to be part of the EU.
Bosnia is also a transit point for thousands of Chinese migrants
heading west from the Federal Republic. Mr Leese said there were 50
new Chinese arrivals on each flight into Belgrade from Moscow.
"I asked [the Yugoslav authorities] how many leave, but they have no
record," he said. "They are probably being shipped across the
northern border and through the Serbian part of Bosnia."
Many of the 58 Chinese migrants found dead at Dover in June 2000 had
travelled via Sarajevo, as had eight mainly Turkish migrants found
dead in a shipping container in Ireland last month.
The British immigration team is likely to be called in by the
Belgrade government to tighten border security. A similar request has
been made by Romania. The group is proving effective at Sarajevo
airport, where British-bought forgery detection equipment and new
questioning techniques have disrupted the smugglers.
The new vigilance, together with the introduction of a visa
requirement for Iranian visitors, reduced "disappearing" airline
passengers to 8,400 last year, compared with 25,000 in the previous
six months.
But Mile Juric, the SBS chief, said the trafficking gangs had
switched tactics. He said: "Because of the measures we have
undertaken at the airport we can sense bigger pressure from Turkish
citizens on the land border crossings."
Once in Bosnia, most migrants head for Sarajevo, from where couriers
will ferry them onwards. They gather in the Bascarsija district,
where the architecture recalls Sarajevo's Ottoman past. In Humska
Ulica street a group of Turks congregated at an international
telephone booth to arrange the next stage of their journey.
Others head straight to the taxi ranks at the city's bus station.
Vaha Srce, a taxi driver, said that "all last year" he had been
driving the six-hour journey to the northern town of Bihac. His
passengers were always Kurdish, always had the US$200 fare (�140) and
often asked for the same hotel. Bihac is on the Croatian border, and
from there it is just a short hop to Italy and the EU.
The clampdown on people smuggling is also made difficult by more than
one million unexploded mines in the border areas. Mr Leese said:
"There is no way you are going to get immigration officers walking
around here. But the people who planted the mines are the same ones
who are now taking money to show illegal immigrants across the
border."
Legal | Contact us | Using our Content | � 2001 Independent Digital
(UK) Ltd
End<{{{
2}}}>Begin
News | Sport | Argument | Money | Travel | Enjoyment | Advancement
News | UK | This Britain
Immigration hit squads to target 500,000 illegal workers
By Ian Burrell, Home Affairs Correspondent
21 January 2002
Internal links
Sex, drugs and illegal migrants: Sarajevo's export trade to Britain
>From the Balkans to brothels in Soho
Sweeping changes to employment and immigration laws will be announced by the Home
Secretary, David Blunkett, next month in a move designed to flush out up to 500,000
illegal foreign workers.
Immigration "hit squads" will concentrate on the hotel and catering, construction,
clothes manufacturing, agricultural and information technology industries as part of a
programme to treble the rate of removal of illegal
immigrants and failed asylum-seekers to 2,500 a week.
Lord Rooker, the Immigration minister, has promised that a series of "high-profile
prosecutions" of employers will send a message to people-smuggling gangs that it is no
longer safe to work illegally in Britain.
But the new government strategy has provoked concern among business leaders and
refugee support groups.
Miles Quest, a spokesman for the British Hospitality Association, which represents
30,000 establishments in the hotel and catering industry, denied the sector had a
problem with illegal workers.
"This implies that the industry is full of unskilled illegal employees when we are
desperately trying to raise the profile of the industry as a worthwhile career," he
said.
Nick Hardwick, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said many illegal workers were
meeting a demand in the British economy for skilled and unskilled labour. "If you
simply crack down on the employees without tackling t
he question of demand, you will not solve the problem," he said.
As part of its White Paper on Asylum, Immigration and Citizenship, the Government will
frame a code of conduct for employers in hiring foreign workers which they will have
to abide by, or face being taken to court.
In addition, employers who are found to have been deliberately complicit in bringing
illegal immigrants to Britain to work could face sentences of up to 14 years.
Lord Rooker claimed it was easier to work illegally in Britain "than in any other
country in the European Union".
"There are small firms in this country which are paying the minimum wage, struggling
to make ends meet, keeping going, and being undercut by some other types of firms who
are employing illegal labour."
Prosecutions of employers for using illegal workers were currently "virtually
non-existent", he said. "We are going to tackle this in a much more high-profile way
as a means of sending the signal back down the line. A few
big prosecutions will send the right signal."
Some industries within the British economy were clearly using large numbers of illegal
workers, he said. "We are having a look, sector by sector. We have areas where it is
known there is a propensity to have labour that i
s not legal. For example, construction, hotel and catering." Illegal workers would
face being deported, he said. "There will be no amnesties. Some people will be sent
packing, there's no question about that. If nothing el
se it will help us to meet our removal targets."
The Government is anxious to give employers more opportunities to
fill skill shortages by legally hiring foreign staff. An overseas
advertising campaign will attempt to lure up to 350,000 specialist
workers to Britain.
Lord Rooker said: "We have to advertise and let people know that we
have ways into this country to work to meet our skills shortages in a
more upfront way than before. We want people to avoid the
traffickers."
The purge on illegal working comes as concerns grow about the extent
to which smuggling gangs are exploiting weak border controls in
Balkan countries to bring people illegally into the European Union
and on to Britain, where some are forced to work in brothels and
sweatshops. Lord Rooker said Britain was "extremely concerned" about
the Balkan route.
Britain is to set up a network of immigration intelligence officers
across the region to investigate the activities of organised gangs
who are smuggling people into Britain from Turkey, Kosovo and the
Middle East.
A team of senior British immigration officials has also been posted
to Bosnia to set up controls at borders which are leaking up to
50,000 illegal immigrants a year to Western Europe. The British team
has requested the help of military helicopters for border patrols.
Intelligence reports suggest that Turkish and Chinese criminal gangs
are working together to transport migrants to Britain through Bosnia
and Yugoslavia.
Legal | Contact us | Using our Content | � 2001 Independent Digital
(UK) Ltd
End<{{{
3}}}>Begin
>From the Balkans to brothels in Soho
By Ian Burrell
21 January 2002
Internal links
Immigration hit squads to target 500,000 illegal workers
Sex, drugs and illegal migrants: Sarajevo's export trade to Britain
More than 300 Eastern European women and girls have been forced into brothels in Soho,
central London, but British police do not take the problem seriously, the Geneva-based
International Organisation for Migration believ
es.
The group, which is funded by governments, says foreign women in British brothels "are
getting younger". A report by the group says: "Trafficking is likely to be more
significant than official figures suggest, given the e
xistence of 75 known brothels in the Soho area of London alone, in which 80 per cent
of the employees are foreigners, the majority ... Albanians or Kosovars."
But it says police outside London appear to have little understanding of the problem.
"Outside the capital, trafficking is not prioritised, thus the scale of the phenomenon
is unknown," it reports.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says 120,000 women
and children are being trafficked into the European Union each year,
mostly through the Balkans.
Graham Leese, head of a British immigration team sent to Bosnia to
tackle people smuggling, said the country was a training ground for
brothels in the EU.
The IoM's Sarajevo office says 10,000 women, mostly from Moldova,
Romania and Ukraine, are working in the country's sex trade.
Legal | Contact us | Using our Content | � 2001 Independent Digital
(UK) Ltd
End<{{{
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A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled
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