Bosnia and Herzegovina

Italian NATO peacekeeping soldiers in Sarajevo were accused by Spanish secret services of organizing a child prostitution network that exploited girls between the ages of 12 and 14. The report said the girls were brought, in 1996, to the NATO force's headquarters in the Sarajevo suburb of Ilidza. Since then, the girls had been taken to areas including the Croatian coast where NATO soldiers go to relax. Spanish defence ministry denied the charges. (Military intelligence services, Agence France Presse, 23 May 1998)

Low estimates are that 20,000 women were raped, most of them Muslims, during the Balkans war. (Marlise Simons, "Landmark Bosnia Rape Trial: A Legal Morass," New York Times, 29 July 1998)

Rape was used as a weapon to impregnate women and to "humiliate, shame, degrade and terrify" an entire ethnic group. (United Nations, Marlise Simons, "Landmark Bosnia Rape Trial: A Legal Morass," New York Times, 29 July 1998)

Health and Well-Being

One to four percent of raped women became pregnant during the wars in the former Yugoslavia. The statistics by the Medica center for these women are much higher. (Statistics of women rape victims of the war in the former Yugoslavia, Medica Zenica - Infoteka Special edition "Rape - A Specific Trauma, A Specific Type of Violence: Our Work Experience with Rape Survivors in the War in Bosnia-Herzegovina" May 1997)

The Medica Zenica center for women found that the women survivors of rapes during the wars in the former Yugslavia, have all the symptoms of rape trauma--hyperarousal, constant fear, anxiety, withdrawal, loneliness, sometimes suicidal tendencies, reliving the trauma through nightmares, flashbacks, phobias, feelings of loneliness, shame, and guilt. (Medica Zenica - Infoteka Special edition "Rape - A Specific Trauma, A Specific Type of Violence: Our Work Experience with Rape Survivors in the War in Bosnia-Herzegovina," May 1997)

Official Response and Action

During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, women were systematically captured and raped as terrorization, a weapon of war in rape camps and detention facilities. As of March 1998 only 6 of the 27 suspects charged with rape and sexual assault have been arrested, although the location of the other 21 suspects is known. ("Bring Justice for Victims of War-time Rape in Bosnia," National Organization for Women, March 1998)

Rape is being considered in the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal. The landmark case involves the kidnapping and the continuos rape of a Bosnian Muslim woman by Bosnian Croat soldiers. The woman’s identity is being protected during the trial and she has been treated for post-traumatic stress. The trial has not been proceeding well with admissions of prosecution procedural errors and a defense attack on the woman and her credibility as a witness. The trial is not heard by a jury but instead by a panel of three judges and due to the issue of privacy for the victim in this case, much of the court sessions are closed. The prosecution was dealt a setback and now must begin the trial again and hand over the woman’s medical history and other medical documents. The woman must return to the Hague a second time. Some observers feel that the court is not doing enough to ensure that the woman does not suffer any more than she already has.

Bringing rape cases to the tribunal was expected to be straightforward, given the widespread abuse of women in the Balkan war. Much of the evidence to begin trials of this type was collected by women. They set out to demonstrate that sexual assault in Bosnia was systematic and used as a weapon of war. This led the tribunal to include sexual assault as a crime against humanity. (Marlise Simons, "Landmark Bosnia Rape Trial: A Legal Morass," New York Times, 29 July 1998)