3071-The political economy of new slavery

92 Responses to Sexual Slavery
publicly highlighted the direct link between the sex industry of ‘peace’
and the presence of international peacekeeping personnel in postconflict
areas. As pertaining to retributive peace, the phenomenon of
post-conflict human trafficking for forced prostitution is described by
Madeleine Rees, head of the UN Human Rights Commission office in
Sarajevo, as drawing on the rules of supply and demand, whereby ‘[o]nly
the international community would have been able to get to the flats
and bars being made available with foreign women’ (McGregory, 2002).
In the event of a successful deployment of international troops in all
regions of Afghanistan, which local sources and past history suggest
might not necessarily happen, the demand for female slaves will
invariably rise, according to Elwert (2000), in what is labelled part of
the post-conflict market of violence. In Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH), the
UNMiBH has estimated that between 750 and 1,000 trafficked women
and girls are subjected to sexual slavery, while the NGO Lara, based in
Bijeljina, estimates that double the aforementioned number of foreign
women are presently trapped in brothels around BiH (Vandenberg, 2002).
The conflicting nature of such speculations concerning the specific number
of sex slaves held on BiH territory is symptomatic of the numerous
problems surrounding a volatile trade. The aim of this chapter is to
draw lessons from the issues surrounding the onset of trafficking to and
within Bosnia-Herzegovina, in order to issue valid recommendations
to prevent the worsening of the present situation in Afghanistan and
Pakistan.
Trafficking: seen and unseen
The brutalization of the female body in war through rape is not a new
phenomenon. However, the revelations surrounding the use of rape
camps during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina has given a new direction
to the study of conflict, for its civilian dimension could not be ignored
any longer (Stiglmayer, 1994). Peace studies acquired renewed academic
legitimacy over their strategic studies counterpart, while the debate over
the civilian nature of conflicts became centred around the subject of
‘new and old wars’ (Kaldor, 2000). While the field of peace studies
has drastically expanded since the end of the Cold War, this chapter
will contend that violence against women also seems to be repeated in
peace through trafficking and forced prostitution, constituting the core
of sexual slavery. Therefore, the study of new wars ought to be expanded
to include a redefinition of what does and should constitute a rightsbased
peace. Indeed, when confronted with the everyday realities of