BRAMA, November 16, 2000, 11:00pm EST

15 November -- Local police in the town of Prijedor in Republika Srpska have carried out a successful operation to thwart trafficking in human beings, the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) said today.

According to the Mission, the UN International Police Task Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina monitored a raid on three nightclubs conducted by the Prijedor police on 13 November. A preliminary investigation found that 33 women and girls from Romania, The Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Russia -- some as young as 14 years old -- had been trafficked for the purpose of prostitution.

Reacting to the raid, Jacques Klein, the head of UNMIBH, called on those responsible for the crimes to be punished to the full extent of the law and stressed that "the buying and selling of human beings has no place in modern society at the beginning of the 21st century."

The UN Mission said it was now working with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to repatriate the women to their home countries. Since March 1999, UNMIBH, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the IOM have successfully identified and repatriated more than 200 victims of human trafficking.

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