theglobaljournal.net: Latest activities of group Kathryn Bolkovac

Bolkovac Stands Up Against the ''Whistleblower Improvement Act''

2012-02-10T12:24:36Z

Kathryn Bolkovac has raised concerns over the ‘’ Whistleblower Improvement Act ‘’ by joining the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) in advocating for the safeguard of the rights and protections of whistleblowers. POGO, an independent nonprofit organization investigating federal government conduct, has strongly criticized the proposed legislation and its consequences for corporation liability and accountability as well as safeguards for whistleblowers. In a letter addressed to her local Representative, Bolkovac, former employee of the private security contractor DynCorp International for the International Police Task Force in Bosnia (and whose story inspired the blockbuster "The Whistleblower"), expressed her concerns about the consequences of the bill on the protection program currently in place for whistleblowers in the United States.

The ''Whistleblower Improvement Act'' was initially sponsored by the U.S. Congressman Michael Grimm. If passed, it will lead to an amendment of the ‘‘Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act’’, the financial and corporate regulatory measures adopted last year. The new legislation would result in major changes; for example, whistleblowers would be required to report violations initally to their employer, through an internal compliance mechanism, instead of directly addressing the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Such an amendment could seriously undermine the whistleblower's ability to report violations for fear of reprisals and retaliation by the employer. In addition, the proposed bill determines that whistleblowers who are guilty of wrong-doing may not be eligible for a financial reward. This important assurance for whistleblowers, and incentive to come forward with allegations of fraud and criminal activity, could then be undermined. According to Bolkovac's campaign letter, the ''Whistleblower Improvement Act'' will dissuade potential whistleblowers from reporting fraud and corporate crimininal activities.

In December 2011, the House Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprise approved the proposed amendments. The bill will next be reviewed by the Financial Services Committee. Supporters of the proposed legislation and its sponsor Rep. Michael Grimm assure that it will help the SEC deal with whistleblowers' allegations more efficiently. According to a press release published in July 2011 by Rep. Michael Grimm's office, ''The overreaching provisions in Dodd-Frank make these internal programs obsolete, open the floodgates of claims to an already overburdened SEC, and delay action on escalating crimes within a company.'' Hence the need for new legislation.

Despite Republican and the financial industry's support for the new legislation, Kathryn Bolkovac firmly believes the ''Whistleblower Improvement Act'' will have harmful consequences, and she expressed her doubts about the bill by sending POGO's campaign letter to her local congress. In the letter, Bolkovac transcribed POGO's clear message: ''Wrapping these destructive policies in the guise of protecting whistleblowers is a cruel joke to all the whistleblowers who risk their careers and livelihoods to report wrongdoing and save investors billions of dollars. This bill would push back important and hard-won whistleblower protections and make it easier for institutions to defraud investors, taxpayers and the government."

What Use is a Code of Conduct Without Enforcement?

2012-01-13T13:50:10Z

The screening of the movie The Whistleblower comes to an end. In the dark room, the atmosphere is heavily charged with disgust and indignation. Massive applause blasts out from a fully filled theatre, both to appease the collective feeling of nausea and pay tribute to the courage and humanity of Kathryn Bolkovac, the former US police officer. She alerted the world to a wide-scale child sex-slave and human-trafficking scandal involving the international community in post-war Bosnia. Her mission in the international police force in Bosnia was brutally terminated, and after a two-year battle, a British employment tribunal ruled that she had been unfairly dismissed by Dyn-Corp, the largest contractor in this business worldwide. Kathryn Bolkovac was in Geneva on the occasion of the preview screening of the movie of her story, to take part in a discussion with stakeholders, experts and the audience. Although used to touring the world to raise awareness about human trafficking and sexual exploitation, the exercise had a bitter flavor in Geneva, a UN stronghold. She was exposed anew to the UN bureaucracy which had helped to crush her struggle to destroy the sexual exploitation machinery linked to UN personnel and international aid workers hired by private contractors in Bosnia.

While recognizing that not enough had been done, Nathalie Prouvez, from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, mentioned “concrete” measures taken by the UN since the scandal was revealed: a “bulletin” by the UN Secretary-General announcing a series of “special measures”, the publication of “a comprehensive strategy” to eliminate future sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) in UN peacekeeping operations, a “revised draft model memorandum of understanding” between the UN and troop-contributing countries, a Conduct and Discipline Unit in charge of “providing overall directions for general policy on conduct and discipline issues”, and the adoption of a “Comprehensive Strategy” on assistance and support to victims of SEA by UN staff and related personnel.

These measures have not prevented SEA from happening again in Kosovo, Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo because there is no effective mechanism to enforce them. And there are still no international mechanisms to hold the perpetrators accountable for their crimes. The UN is facing the Member-States’ inflexible determination to protect the immunity regime and their legal sovereignty over fellow citizens working for international organisations. Should the UN refuse peacekeepers with no legal national commitment against SEA to enter the field? Would this push the States to undergo a moment of truth or would it possibly jeopardize the available forces for peacekeeping missions? Obviously, when referring to peacekeepers, every one understood who was really missing from the panellists.

What makes the matter worse is the increasingly widespread use of private military or security companies in peacekeeping operations. The personnel deployed by these contractors not only lack a military culture or law enforcement discipline and leadership but they also enjoy a civilian status which discharges their home State from legal responsibility, and protects them from criminal military prosecution. A code of conduct for private security providers was developed under the leadership of Switzerland in 2010 and had been signed by 266 private security companies as of 1 December 2011. The code, dubbed a “window dresser” by some, is looked at sceptically because it was partially developed from the very codes of conduct that private companies had already brought forward and used for years, on a voluntary basis.

Although a culture shift is felt in the UN, much remains to be done. In February 2012, the intergovernmental working group, established with great difficulties by the Human Rights Council, will examine a project for an international convention to regulate private security companies with binding legal instruments. But fierce opposition from the USA, the U.E. and Switzerland is expected to be shown against any such project that includes enforcement and accountability measures.

From the panel, Madeleine Rees, who, as former Representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, supported Kathryn Bolkovac’s struggle in Bosnia, painfully observes, “There has never been an apology to Kathy from the UN. There has never been an acknowledgment that what she did was heroic. On the contrary, she is still portrayed as having done something incorrect. If we really want to encourage whistleblowers, which the Secretary General says he wants, then the least that the UN could do is start by apologising and saying that what she did was absolutely right and absolutely heroic”

F. G.

Has the UN Heard the Whistle Blow?

2011-12-02T16:49:55Z

The United Nations has taken a step forward in acknowledging the involvement of UN personnel in a human trafficking ring in post-war Bonsia by hosting a screening of the film, "The Whistleblower", at its New York headquarters (October 13). The purpose of the screening was to promote the organization's new ''Zero-tolerance policy'' towards human rights violations perpetrated by UN personnel.

The film made headlines by exposing the real life story of Kathryn Bolkovac, hired by a private US security contractor in 1999 to recruit American peacekeepers for the UN mission in Bosnia. The film exposes the appalling reality of human trafficking and the involvement of UN peacekeepers and officials.

Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon addressed the audience and underlined the progress made by the UN since the events, stating that the organization has made considerable progress "to prevent and punish such terrible abuses”. Measures include the creation of codes of conduct and establishment of conduct and discipline units in peacekeeping operation.

Along with a stricter policy for recruiting UN personnel, the Secretary General noted that certain peacekeeping missions have initiated curfews and tidentified areas considered 'out-of-bounds' for UN personnel. In addition, he said, reports of violations by UN personnel are to be closely investigated by the UN with the possibility of repatriation and legal prosecution in the country of origin.

Also present at the event was Madeleine Rees, former head of the Women’s Rights and Gender Unit for the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Rees, played in the film by actress Vanessa Redgrave, helped to expose the allegations of human trafficking along with Bolkovac.

Following the 2009 UN reform, a Dispute Tribunal and an Appeals Tribunal became operational,which were major steps in assuring an operational internal justice system. This system consolidates the UN response to allegations of violations and how for UN staff is to be held accountable for their actions.

Last month, four Uruguayan peacekeepers serving in the UN mission in Haiti were repatriated and placed in preventive detention for their alleged involvement in a sexual assault case on an 18-year-old Haitian man.

The Whistleblower and Trafficking

2011-12-02T16:49:24Z

The film “The Whistleblower,” has brought back into focus the horrors that were inflicted on many, many women in Bosnia as a consequence of the conflict, this time, not the rape of women in war. It was the sexual exploitation and abuse of women trafficked into Bosnia after the hostilities were ostensibly over. It is based on real events and I know because I was there (and am honored to have been portrayed by Vanessa Redgrave in the film). But I am uncomfortable. Many people have congratulated or thanked me for trying to do something about the appalling conduct of many of those working in the international community, for trying to set up mechanisms that would give real assistance to women and enable them to be heard and responded to. The fact is though, that we failed. It was never enough and there were never enough of us trying to make it happen. When the worst ravages of this “trade” ended, it was not because we had stopped it, it was because the market had pretty much gone, literally, to other missions or home. The film should provoke us to demand that it is not left to market forces to determine the fate of so many women.

Everything portrayed in the film actually happened. It did not necessarily happen to those characters, but it happened. Kathy, the Whistleblower, lost her job. She has never worked in law enforcement since and her courage in exposing the truth ruined her professional career. But the real tragedy of the film is what happens to the young women and children. The youngest victim I met was 11. The real tragedy is that nothing happened to those who used and abused them.

Trafficking is big business, “extreme capitalism”. The traffickers see themselves as entrepreneurs who identify markets and then provide the goods. In the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the perceived market was the 80,000 mainly male peacekeepers present after the peace accord, the “goods” were the women from an impoverished Eastern Europe, a region undergoing a painful economic transition. The majority of women were duped into thinking they were undertaking safe migration for a short period of time to work, earn a bit of capital, and return home. Most were from Moldova, Romania and Ukraine but over time, the number of women from Serbia increased as well as the incidence of internal trafficking of Bosnian women.

The entrepreneurs were right. The market materialized and the trade in women for forced sexual exploitation burgeoned. The initial phase was characterized by extreme violence and illegality, possible only because of the lawlessness that prevailed in Bosnia-Herzegovina at that time, and because of the lack of political will on the part of national and international organisations to address it. There is no question that there was involvement of men from the international community. It is also incredible that they could believe that what was going on was “just prostitution.”

I have been convinced of the arguments put forward by some academics and NGOs working with victims in Bosnia-Herzegovina that the tolerance of trafficking and sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) is a product of the militarization of the societies in which it takes place. There is evidence of similar activities and patterns of abuse in all conflict and post-conflict settings where there are peacekeepers, international police, aid workers and so on: the perceived market, which believes itself to be outside and free from the rule of law and thus can act with impunity. They are wrong in this, but absent any attempts to ensure investigation, prosecution and punishment, then they might as well be right.

There are two elements at play: the issue of masculinities in a culture of militarization, and lack of adherence to international law.

The first is an obvious outcome. To believe that the existence of an ostensible “zero tolerance policy” will make a dent without a fundamental cultural shift in how men relate to women, and not just in conflict, is to be naïve. It is that shift and how to achieve it that needs identifying.

The second part, by comparison, is easier. It is a matter of interpreting the law beyond political considerations which have prevented any serious application to date, and to ensure that there are consequences for all who engage in sex trafficking no matter what role they play, from the recruiter to the man who buys the sex and commits the act of rape.

The doctrine of immunity has been the shield in the cover-up so far. It has been misunderstood and misapplied. Almost all functionaries in other countries have functional immunity. This is true for UN employees, for troops under the status of forces agreements (SOFA), and for private contractors hired by States. Anything that is legitimately seen to be part of the job of that person is covered.

Common sense dictates that the commission of a crime is absolutely not part of a job description. It is even more difficult to understand how crimes as serious as rape, sexual exploitation, slavery and extortion can be excluded, particularly when it is as a result of their position that the individual has the access, authority and ability to commit such crimes.

The United Nations Secretary-General has responded positively to the film and this is to be welcomed and encouraged. He has admitted and regretted that there were “lapses” in the past. He has reiterated the standing of the zero tolerance policy, which means no procuring of sex whilst on mission. He has said that there must be more training and that “the culture must change”. But he must do more. He must ensure that the troop-contributing countries (TCCs) comply with legal obligations to investigate, punish and report men who rape women. In most cases it is not known if there have been any consequences for those who have committed criminal acts. We do know, however, that men who have been sent home have turned up in other missions. The arguments put forward by the UN not to demand accountability is that TCCs will simply stop providing much-needed troops. This leads to the appalling situation that a man can commit a serious crime in someone else’s country and not be prosecuted for a reasons of political expediency. Sending troops is a very lucrative business: take a look at the substantial contribution peacekeeping provides to the GDP of many TCCs. How many would deny their military or police the chance to earn large sums though UN service?

The SG should be encouraged by all to do the right thing as a matter of law and of morality. Start with strict obligations on Member States to ensure training, regulation, investigative procedures, prosecutions and open and transparent reporting back to the UN. This is a minimum. Ensure that there is a senior official with responsibility to ensure monitoring and reporting in-country and ensure that it is possible for complaints to be made. The majority cannot come forward for fear of retribution and the UN cannot use the number of complaints as an indicator of real incidence. If it were, then we would be fooled into thinking it was not a problem in Bosnia.

There are many former and current UN employees who have tried to do the right thing. This film demands that UN and Member State leadership take up the issue and deal with it as a matter of absolute urgency.

The human rights of all those women, and some men, subjected to this appalling violence demands no less.

The Whistleblowers

2011-10-16T15:30:00Z

How an unlikely pair of formidable women –a policewoman from Kansas and a UN diplomat from the UK– tried to stop human trafficking in post-war Bosnia.

Kathryn Bolkovac was a good cop. Back in her hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska, the athletic Ms. Bolkovac once wrestled a fleeing criminal to the ground and disarmed him. Kathryn Bolkovac was just as thorough about her paperwork, documenting and recording ever scrap of relevant information. A good police officer, she says, is one who can build a case. When she decided to take a job in 1999 with the private security contractor DynCorp International, Kathryn Bolkovac brought both her zeal and her diligence to her new job on the International Police Task Force in Bosnia. But when she was assigned to investigate the trafficking of girls and women, Bolkovac soon discovered that she was going to have to wrestle with a lot more than one fleeing criminal. Not only was she up against organized crime in Bosnia and the Eastern European mafia that was supplying that market with trafficked women, she would also have to contend with hostility from DynCorp colleagues and even members of the UN policing mission. Kathryn Bolkovac’s investigation was soon annoying a lot of people.

To read the full article, order a copy of the magazine

by Sarah Meyer de Stadelhofen

UN Schedules Public Screening of Controversial Film

2011-08-12T20:03:21Z

The United Nations New York headquarters has decided to organize a public screening of the controversial film The Whistleblower which doesn’t exactly make the UN look good. The film, starring Rachel Weisz and Vanessa Redgrave, is a political thriller about sex trafficking in Bosnia involving UN peacekeepers.

First-time director Larysa Kondracki based the film on the true story of Kathryn Bolkovac, as US cop who takes a job with a private contracting firm in postwar Bosnia, only to uncover a sex trafficking operation.

A statement from the UN Public Affairs Office said “the movie provides an opportunity for the UN to address these issues head-on by acknowledging lapses, and by pointing to what has been done to address them, both as it relates to international efforts against sex-trafficking and internal measures in the UN to tighten controls and accountability."

Deputy Press spokesman, Farhar Haq said that in the decade since the events depicted in the film took place, the UN has put human trafficking and violence against women high on its agenda and has instituted important systems to handle misconduct in peacekeeping operations and to protect whistleblowers.

“The UN believes human trafficking an extremely crucial matter and that more must b done and a number of our offices are already doing more. We also appreciate the effort of this film director to bring this matter to the public,” he said, adding that it has not yet been decided if there will be a panel discussion following the film’s showing.

The Whistleblower premiered at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York City in June and opens in other cities in North America on August 12.

The Global Journal has scheduled a screening of the film in Geneva on October 1st.

The July/August issue of the Global Journal features interviews with film director Kathryn Bolkovac and human rights lawyer Madeleine Rees as well as a review of the film.

Sex Trafficking: A Movie, a Book, a Global Issue

2011-07-11T09:45:06Z

To read the report, order a copy of the magazine

To read the interview with Kathryn Bolkovac, order a copy of the magazine

To read the film review, order a copy of the magazine

To read the interview with Madeleine Rees, order a copy of the magazine