Special Historical UNCS / ZAMUN 2017

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Lucia Posluchová
Historical UNSC President
Charles University, Prague, Faculty of social sciences
Matúš Ďuraňa
Historical UNSC President
Comenius University, Bratislava, Kolegium Antona Neuwirtha

Human trafficking in Bosnia and Herzegovina was an issue since 1995, as predicted by Human Rights Watch and UN Mission in Bosnia & Herzegovina. The mission was created according to the Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the war in Bosnia and proposed the intervention of the UN. UN used the International Police Task Force (IPTF) for peacekeeping, which lasted until 2003, when this responsibility of law enforcement in Bosnia was forwarded to EU. The IPTF consisted of police officers from 45 member states representatives.

Kathryn Bolkovac was one of the police officers, recruited from the US. Bolkovac learned through several interviews that there were UN officers involved in trafficking from several countries which complicated the fight against trafficking. Not only did they pay for the women, some officers were also active in the business- for example ‘forging documents to transport young girls across national borders’.  Bolkovac wrote a final report with 10 cases that gave specific information about ‘names, dates, times, identification numbers and license plates of UN vehicles and other internationals they were forced to serve. The year is 2002, and Kathryn Bolkovac just blew the whistle. The UNSC has to react to the serious threat to its credibility and undermining its goals by the scandal.