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7. Peacekeepers and Human Trafficking: The New Security Dilemma
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C h a p t e r 7 Peacekeepers and Human Trafficking: The New Security Dilemma Charles Anthony Smith Introduction In July 1999, the United Nations deployed the Kosovo Protection Force (KFOR) to protect ethnic Albanians in the war-torn province of Serbia. With the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1244, approximately 20,000 UN troops were deployed to Kosovo to protect the civilian population from daily skirmishes between the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). Within months, several international human rights organizations began reporting precipitous increases in trafficking for sexual exploitation in the region. An Amnesty International report released in August 2004 reported that human trafficking rings were abducting women from Eastern Europe to be sold into the sex trade that was now thriving in Kosovo. By mid-1999, with over 40,000 troops stationed in Kosovo, brothels had been constructed near military bases, and the previously small-scale market for prostitution was “transformed into a large-scale industry . . . predominantly run by organized criminal networks” (Amnesty International 2004b). The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) soon identified four major areas of increase, all near large force deployments, with most clients reportedly UN peacekeepers. In studying the effects of humanitarian intervention on the frequency, intensity, and recurrence of conflict, scholars have generated a large and unsettled volume of literature on the desirability and effects of peacekeeping 122 Charles Anthony Smith missions (see, e.g., Diehl, Reifschneider, and Hensel 1996; Gilligan and Stedman 2003; Regan 2002; Wilkenfeld and Brecher 1984). Nonconflict externalities such as human trafficking, however, have received relatively little attention. This chapter attempts to remedy the lack of scholarly work in this area by focusing on four case studies: Kosovo, Haiti, and Sierra Leone, where UN forces were deployed in response to armed conflict, and Nepal, where they were not. In the three cases where intervention occurred, significant increases in human trafficking followed, with the magnitude of change directly related to the size of the deployment. While there may be additional negative externalities, the focus here is whether and to what extent force presence and size affects trafficking for sexual exploitation. I adopt a distinction between smuggling and trafficking made by Graycar (1999). Using the concept of consent as the demarcating element, Graycar suggests that smuggling and trafficking occupy opposite positions on a spectrum, with the degree of consent determining whether a practice is more appropriately considered one or the other. Whereas smuggling is simply the illegal but voluntary movement of people across a border, trafficking is defined here as the forced migration of people against their will through deception, abduction, and involuntary confinement. The importance of this distinction is that trafficking, thus defined, must contain an element of coercion. Despite the paucity of microlevel data on trafficking for sexual exploitation , the macrolevel trends suggest that human trafficking increases as a result of force deployments. That existing literature has not dealt adequately with this or other negative noncombat externalities is a function of UN missions—if the primary aim of an intervention is to halt conflict, it is natural that the effectiveness of a deployment will be judged on that basis. The aim here is a more complete picture of peacekeeping, one that considers the effect of UN forces during the time they are deployed, not merely after they have gone. The success and desirability of UN-led intervention is contested and ultimately unsettled (Diehl, Reifschneider, and Hensel 1996, 688; Doyle and Sambanis 2000; Fortna 2004; Gilligan and Stedman 2003; Regan 2002; Wilkenfeld and Brecher 1984). Economic incentives are widely considered the driving mechanism behind the formation of markets in human trafficking (Bales 2005; Salt 2000; Salt and Stein 1997; Schloenhardt 1999). Other theories argue that human trafficking is better understood as an international crime (Strecker [52.55.55.239] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 19:51 GMT) Peacekeepers and Human Trafficking 123 and Shelley 2004; Aronowitz 2001; Schloenhardt 1999). In both cases, however , a desire for profit is the primary factor in explaining the creation and expansion of trafficking networks. The economic logic of human trafficking mirrors that of other illicit networks, including those designed to deliver narcotics and weapons—where demand for sex workers outstrips supply, human trafficking networks will emerge (Salt and Stein 1997; Schloenhardt 1999, 214). Alternative approaches to human trafficking focus on the ability of preexisting, transnational criminal networks to profit by satisfying demand for a new good (Caldwell et al. 1999; Ruggiero 1997; Shannon 1999...