How's this for timely? The United States and Sweden have put their peacekeepers in Bosnia on notice: visit a brothel, lose your weekend leave. And engage in pedophilia, you'll certainly get a very stern reprimand.

The warning to their contingents follows nearly 5 years of inaction in the face of overwhelming bad publicity engendered as the international authorities in Bosnia - particularly former UN representative Jacques Klein - refused to acknowledge that the problem even existed.

In Banja Luka, for example, a well-known brothel near the Polish peacekeepers' base was closed down only after the contingent was withdrawn.

Last year, former DynCorp employee Katherine Bolkovac won a settlement before a UK labour board after she proved she had been fired for blowing the whistle on DynCorp employees playing with underage prostitutes at brothels in Bosnia.

Pimps in Bosnia typically set up shop near international institutions, since they command a higher rate from foreigners than they do from homegrown johns.

In response to the outrage, DynCorp informed US Representative Henry Hyde that they would now brief all new recruits in their outsourcing jobs not to visit houses of ill-repute. Per UN policies, all peacekeepers enjoyed immunity in Bosnia; not one has been charged with sex-related criminal infractions by their home countries, who are left to prosecute them. This includes the United States.

And despite intense criticism of his performance in Bosnia and the general belief that he encouraged a culture of permissiveness and corruption among the internationals under his watch, Jacques Klein is now UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's troubleshooter in Liberia. -cali ruchala