University of Nebraska Kearney

International Studies Speaker and Film Showing

Jan 25-28, the International Studies program is sponsoring a film showing, presentation and book signing of The Whistleblower, featuring Kathryn Bolkovac. 

Kathy Bolkovac was a Lincoln police officer in 1999 when she took a position as U.N. International police force monitor in Bosnia-Hercegovina.  Originally hired by the U.S. subcontractor,  DynCorps, Kathy was rapidly disillusioned by the attitudes, behavior and poor job qualifications of some of her colleagues, but was soon even more disturbed to find that not only they, but United Nations peacekeepers, were implicated in sex trafficking activities in Bosnia.   Specifically, when Bolkovac and others at the human rights and “gender” desk in Bosnia sought to prosecute bar owners and sex traffickers in Bosnia, she found that her paperwork either mysteriously disappeared or became buried in bureaucratic red tape.  When she pressed the issue, Bolkovac was fired on obviously fictitious grounds of falsifying her time sheets.  Bolkovac successfully sued DynCorps for unfair dismissal but more importantly her story brought the issue of UN involvement in sex trafficking to the broader public, particularly once her memoir was made into a successful Hollywood film, The Whistleblower, starring Rachel Weisz.  Ms. Bolkovac now lives and works in Europe as a human rights activist.  Indeed, last March she was the keynote speaker at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia’s International Women’s Day Celebration.  Last fall, Secretary General Ban Ki Moon ordered a showing of the Whistleblower at the U.N. and Bolkovac will be a guest speaker at the UN next spring. 

Film Showing
January 25 & 26 7:30 pm The World Theatre (on the Bricks downtown)
January 27, 2:00 pm The World Theatre (on the Bricks downtown )
          To be followed by a faculty led panel discussion
          Tickets $5.00, student discounts available in the Nebraska Student Union
January 28, 2:30 pm, Copeland Hall 131—Free and Open to the Public

Book signing and Presentation by Kathryn Bolkovac:  Free and Open to the Public
January 28, 4:30 pm, Copeland Hall 131

The International Studies Program is grateful to the following units for their support for this presentation:
Faculty Senate Artists and Lecturer’s Committee
Graduate Office
Women’s Studies Program
Department of Criminal Justice
Department of Family Studies and Interior Design
Department of History
Department of Political Science
Department of Sociology
Department of Social Work