Julie Bindel

My mistaken Balkan raid

Heels, eels and misconstrued deals

  • From Spectator Life
(Getty)

It was September 2001 and I was in Zagreb, Croatia, at the end of two weeks in the Balkans. I was there to train law enforcers in counter-trafficking initiatives: the importation of women from that region into Western European sex markets was rife following the war in the 1990s. Police in the UK had disrupted several trafficking rings originating in the Balkans, and stories were emerging as to the horror their victims had endured.

Well into our second bottle, I spotted a group of leather-jacketed men leading several women, each tottering on spike heels, through to the ballroom

To put this trip...

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