>X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Status: > >Albanian gangsters kidnapping women and girls to service troops. Kosovo >has not been part of the Eastern European sex trade that has flourished >since the collapse of communism, but the lure of a 45,000-strong army has >made it a new business. > >- - - - - - - - - - - - > >By Hank Hyena > >Feb. 9, 2000 | Kosovo has known horrendous atrocities as ethnic minorities >and NATO troops battled for supremacy of the region. Now a new victim has >emerged in this cursed country: sex slaves. Young women kidnapped from >Moldova, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania and other impoverished Eastern European >nations are being forced by Albanian gangsters to prostitute themselves to >foreign soldiers and businessmen in seedy nightclubs springing up around >Kosovo, reports the London Times. > >Last week Italian police rescued 12 women -- some as young as 16 -- from >Nightclub International, located near the headquarters of the Russian >forces outside Pristina. The women claimed they had been abused and sold >several times to different owners as they were smuggled from their >homelands to Kosovo. At Nightclub International they provided sexual favors >to Russian and American troops at a cost of about $48 for 30 minutes. > >The International Organization of Migration (IOM) in Pristina estimates >that there are "thousands of girls who are now prisoners in the European >sex trade." > >While British troops are subject to a strict "no walking out" policy and >not permitted in such bars, American, Russian and Italian soldiers are less >closely monitored and have easier access to the brothels proliferating >across the province. > >International agencies trying to assist the enslaved women are overwhelmed >by the magnitude of the problem. The Albanian pimps are also dangerous. >Staff members at the IOM were threatened after the Italians confiscated the >12 girls because the Mafia-style gangs viewed the women as their "property." > >The sex merchants were enraged because they had paid from $1,597 to $2,237 >for each of the girls, plus they retained half the cash from every trick >and another 10 percent for the girls' room and board. The unhappy hookers >have the option to buy back their freedom with the remaining fraction, but >in actuality they end up with little or nothing, said an IOM official. > >Kosovo girls are also unsafe because flesh-traders can eliminate costly >fees to distant middlemen if they successfully abduct regional girls. >Several teenagers have vanished recently; the resulting panic emptied the >province's streets after dark. > >salon.com | Feb. 9, 2000 > >- - - - - - - - - - - - > >About the writer: Hank Hyena is a columnist for SF Gate, and a frequent >contributor to Salon. > > >Louis Proyect > >(The Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org) __________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi ___________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/unsubscribe messages mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________
