Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010806/1/1a7ls.html Monday August 6, 10:47 AM Prostitutes from East Europe tormented by Macedonia's conflict SKOPJE, Aug 6 (AFP) - Already traumatised and mistreated by their ethnic Albanian procurers, many women coming from various Eastern European countries have also felt the dangers of the war between the ethnic Albanian rebels of the National Liberation Army (NLA) and Macedonian forces. Macedonia has been considered as one of the key points for international prostitution because of its geographic position, bordering Albania, Yugoslavia, Greece and Bulgaria. After the NLA rebellion erupted in February, Macedonian police have lost access to certain regions of the country, mostly in the northwest, bordering the UN-administrated Yugoslav province of Kosovo and Albania. In these regions, along with the prostitution, drugs and arms trafficking has been flourishing, experts said. "Due to the situation, our activities in these fields are reduced to a minimum. We do not go to these regions for the time being, since it could be seen as a provocation," a Macedonian policeman in charge of organised crime said. Meanwhile Martin Andreas Wyss, chief of the Skopje-based mission of The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), insisted that the conflict has "disrupted" his agency's projects. The IOM has launched an assistance programme for women suffering various problems, focused mostly on those caught in the chain of prostitution, or the ones who have already managed to escape from their pimps. The organisation is taking care of the plane fares for these women, already traumatised, in a bid to take them out of the regions where they could again fall into the procurers' network. The trip for prostitutes coming from Eastern European countries starts mostly in Ukraine and Moldova, passing through Romania, Serbia and finally, arriving to Macedonia, Western experts said. Most of them are immediately taken to the regions populated with ethnic Albanians, notably in the northwest of the country, around the towns of Tetovo, Gostivar, Dobridol and Bogovinje, or to the southwest, where there are about a dozen brothels in the village of Velesta alone, police said. According to the Western sources, the main links for the prostitution are, besides big hotels in the capital Skopje, the bars Ekspresso and Nafi, as well as the bar 69 in Velesta, and the Kiss Me bar and Bern hotel in the southwestern town of Struga and Kosmos bar in Bogovinje. Albanian brothels are often big, several-floor premises, with restaurants offering show and music programmes, police said. The police consider that one ethnic Albanian, Bojko Dilaver, nicknamed Leku, is the main pander of the local prostitution network. "He is untouchable," one Macedonian policeman complained. "Nobody wants to testify against him and he enjoys a solid protection," he said. In Skopje, 85 women from various Eastern European countries have so far found shelter in a collective center opened in March, after fleeing from their pimps. "Some of them come with serious psychological traumas and they get medical help if they want to," Blagoje Stojkovski, a policeman protecting the center, said. He said that the women in the center "have come voluntarily and they can leave whenever they want to." They "came to Macedonia mostly because of poverty" in their home countries, Stojkovski said. "They dream of honest work in Italy. Some of them end up there, by boat through Albania, but always as prostitutes." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------------------------- This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: archive@jab.org T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
