Thursday, September 28 Cinema im Ostertor 7pm

Karin Jurschick
The peacekeepers and the women

A film by Karin Jurschick,
assistant director: Anke Schäfer, Germany 2003, 80 min
Screening and discussion

The film examines the booming sex-trafficking industry in Bosnia and Kosovo, and boldly explores the disturbing role of the UN peacekeeping forces and the local military in stabilising this situation.
Instead of bringing peace to the troubled region, the free trade zone in Bosnia attracted the thriving business of human trade – where women from villages in Moldova, the Ukraine and Romania are sold by the hundreds into prostitution. The film reveals that affluent peacekeeping forces have been some of the burgeoning industry’s most solvent customers, allowing the sex trade to get a foothold in the region and paving the way for its expansion.
The structures of the complicated crime scene are exposed without resorting to conventional means of investigative journalism and usual victim/perpetrator perspectivress, but allowing the spectator a unique perspective on some people involved, recording their reactions towards filmmaker and camera as well as their professional interactions.