Friday, September 11, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
RIGHTS-YUGOSLAVIA: Prosecutor Arrested for Selling Woman
Vesna Peric Zimonjic
- Deputy State Prosecutor of Montenegro Zoran Piperovic was arrested earlier this week for involvement in a criminal ring that sold a woman as a sex slave.
The arrest is only a more dramatic event in a continuing business in human trafficking in Montenegro, the smaller state in Yugoslavia with a population of 650,000. The larger part, Serbia, has a population of 7.5 million.
"Investigation into human trafficking in Montenegro continues and more arrests will follow," the Yugoslav Ministry of Interior said in a short statement following the arrest of Piperovic.
The arrest and subsequent investigations have confirmed what many have known for some time; that Yugoslavia is a major centre in a sex slavery business.
Piperovic was arrested following a statement from a 28-year-old woman from Moldova, one of the poorest nations in Europe located between Romania and Ukraine. The woman named ‘S.C.’ took refuge in a shelter two weeks back after being treated for serious injuries.
The woman said she had been exploited by many, and named 20 persons in top positions in the judiciary, police and in political life. Her account was taped by Ljiljana Raicevic, head of the women’s shelter. ‘S.C.’ repeated her story to a judge Wednesday in testimony that lasted six hours.
‘S.C.’ told Raicevic she was brought to Montenegro four years back with promise of a highly paid job. But her passport was taken away and she was forced into prostitution. She was sold and resold several times, and once even traded for a Mercedes car, she said.
She is the 56th victim of sex slavery to have come to the women’s shelter this year. The other women have had similar stories to tell, Raicevic told media in Belgrade.
Senior police officers told IPS that the human trafficking scheme in Montenegro is a part of a broader ring in the Balkans. "Prostitution brings hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to the ‘owners’ of sex slaves," an officer said.
"It’s almost impossible to stop as there are police officers involved," he said. "Women are being smuggled from Romania, Ukraine or Moldova, and via Serbia into Montenegro, Bosnia and Kosovo. Most of them are led to believe that through Yugoslavia they could go West."
The law – or the lack of one – does not help. "There is no law against human trafficking in Yugoslavia," coordinator of the Belgrade shelter Vesna Stanojevic told IPS. "Even if the girls testify against the offenders in the courts, the accused are sentenced for unlawful deprivation of liberty, nothing else." A new law in line with Western legislation will be introduced in the Yugoslav parliament later this month.
A recent Human Rights Watch report on human trafficking and sex slavery in Bosnia-Herzegovina says that policemen own brothels with sex slaves. More than 2,000 women are forced into prostitution in Bosnia-Herzegovina alone, the report says.
In all 124 brothels were closed in Bosnia last year after the intervention of human rights and international authorities. In Serbia human trafficking is being pushed under the carpet, and it is hard to get estimates of the number of so-called ‘sex slaves’.
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RIGHTS-YUGOSLAVIA: Prosecutor Arrested for Selling Woman
Vesna Peric Zimonjic
- Deputy State Prosecutor of Montenegro Zoran Piperovic was arrested earlier this week for involvement in a criminal ring that sold a woman as a sex slave.
(more…)
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