Eight middle-aged men, among them four policemen and one professor, are suspected of sexually exploiting two 15-year-old girls in a state of social need. This is not just a “black chronicle”, but a description of a rotten system, which for years turns its head away from children who cry for protection. The whole story is sickening.
The Tuzla Canton, which has been bragging about “developed institutions” for years, showed a picture of a complete moral and institutional bankruptcy. Its collapse has been going on for years, and every time we think it can’t get any more gruesome, the example there convinces us otherwise.
Police badge and conscience
The last case that is not remembered by the Bosnian public is not only criminal, but also a matter of conscience. A university professor, as well as members of the security system, who are suspected of pimping unprotected minors, were involved in certainly one of the most heinous actions.
According to information from the Tuzla Canton Prosecutor’s Office, police officers Besim Kopić, Miralem Halilović, Jasmin Modrić and Dževad Požegić, together with Šemsudin Kadrić, Zijad Jagodić, Sulejman Šehić and Nedim Avdić, are suspected of the most heinous form of crime, namely human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation of minors.
The four arrested wear police badges, and under that badge, according to investigative suspicions and the evidence collected so far, was the biggest betrayal of the trust that citizens have in institutions. When the policeman, who should protect the victim, becomes his abuser, not only the security system collapses, but also the basic moral order of society.
If the charges are ultimately upheld in court, it means that the people who swore to uphold the law have become its destroyers, and the system that employed them and apparently failed to supervise them will be just as guilty.
The girls who survived hell are not just numbers in the investigation. These are children who, as stated by the Prosecution of TK, ran away from social institutions several times, were returned by the police and centers for social work, and no one recognized that these escapes were not caused by mischief, but by desperation. Unfortunately, this is not the first case that the social protection system in Tuzla Canton has shown its ignorance, powerlessness or indifference.
When a child repeatedly escapes from the institution, it is a cry for help, not a disciplinary problem. And social workers with adequately acquired university diplomas, based on the knowledge they have demonstrated during their education, should recognize this very clearly. But instead of psychological and emotional protection, these girls fell from one cycle of abuse and hell to another, until they were recruited by those who knew how to exploit their vulnerability.
Systemic decay
And besides the involvement of high-ranking police officers, at least according to the Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Turkey, the fact that a professor is among the suspects is even more shocking. A man who should be a symbol of knowledge, ethics and a role model, now appears in the context of “users of sexual services of minors”.
In the Tuzla Canton, this is not an isolated case, but a manifestation of systemic deterioration, from the police, through social services, to academic institutions. When in one environment it happens that underage girls, who should be institutionally protected, become the prey of those who should protect them, it means that the state does not exist for the weakest.
If everything works, at least as the authorities claim, “beating their chests” with positive results in their work and stating that the positions are occupied by trained professionals, not political candidates, with diplomas obtained from colleges in shopping centers – then where were the directors of centers for social work? Where were the inspections that monitor the work of institutions for children without parental care? Where was the internal control of the MUP of TK, while its officers allegedly organized a chain of prostitution with children?
Can you look in the mirror?
As we said, this case is not only criminal, but also a matter of conscience. Because if resignations, dismissals and public accountability do not follow now, then we are all complicit. A society that can calmly read that two girls from social institutions were sold by police officers and a professor, without asking for an urgent reform of the system, has ceased to be a society.
This is not the moment for political phrases and procedural statements, but high time for every employee of institutions in the Tuzla Canton, starting with the Police Directorate of the MUP of TK, which is more and more an institution of debauchery, rather than protection of the law, to look in the mirror and ask: Who am I, if I allowed children to be sold?
Because as long as the responsibility rests only on individuals and not on the structure that created and supported them, there is no justice for those girls. And without justice for them, there is no future for us.
(TYPE/Source: Klix.ba/Author: Armin Kendić/Photo: Klix)
