Magazin: Investigative journalism

Like many of the people who indirectly gain from one of Arizona Market’s traditional businesses, Gordana, owner of the aptly named Koridor restaurant, does not see any victims at her tables when the prostitutes from Eastern Europe totter in the door on high heels.

To produce this series, an all-Balkan team of seven journalists and a photo-journalist from Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia went in spring 2002 to the infamous Arizona Market in the Brcko District of northeast Bosnia Herzegovina to investigate the coming showdown between its western style future and its lawless past.

It seemed like a good idea to a female colleague and me. No one on our all-Balkan seven person reporting team had ever been to a night bar. Yet, we were collaborating on a two-week investigation that included the sex trafficking business in northeastern BiH.

Two years ago when infamous Prijedor night bar owner Milorad Milakovic publically called for the legalization of prostitution in the Arizona Market and the rest of Brcko District, district officials could not get far enough away from the idea.
Matija Misic is a Balkans hedonist and the Arizona Market is his playground.

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