WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY NEWS ARCHIVE: BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

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2006

Muslim Women Protest Change to Lukic Indictment
October 6, 2006 - (Tribunal Update) Bosnian Muslim women who say they were victimised or raped by Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Milan Lukic are protesting against the alteration of the indictment against him.

Zelenovic sent to Hague for war crimes trial-reports
June 10, 2006 -(Reuters) Serb war crimes suspect Dragan Zelenovic arrived in The Hague on Saturday to face trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal for rape and torture during the Bosnian war, the tribunal said.

Serbian and Kosovar Women Call for End to "Religious Ownership" of Kosovo's Churches and Mosques
AdvocacyNet
June 7, 2006- (Advocacy Net) Kosovo's religious sites are not the property of any one religion or ethnic group and should be managed by independent professionals - otherwise they risk provoking ethnic confrontation and violence. This is the position taken by the Women's Peace Coalition, a new partnership between Serbian and Kosovar women peace activists that formed in March to monitor the joint Serbian-Kosovar negotiations on Kosovo's future status.

Muslim, Serb women united by heartbreak of war: Tales of loss, survival shared in new book
April 9, 2006 -(Associated Press) Belgrade, Serbia-Montenegro- Over seven months, the women met and told their stories: heart-rending tales of hugging husbands and sons for the last time, witnessing atrocities, struggling to survive and fight for their children after the Balkans bloodletting ended. A program to bring together Serb, Croat and Slavic Muslim women on opposing sides of the 1990s conflicts triggered by the breakup of Yugoslavia sought to promote mutual understanding and build bridges, something their political leaders have so often failed at doing.

Srebrenica mothers still want Milosevic sentenced
March 14, 2006 -(Reuters) The mothers, wives and sisters of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men massacred in Srebrenica by Belgrade-backed forces say Slobodan Milosevic must still be convicted, if only by history.

Round table organized by UNDP and the Gender Agency of BiH: Is there any gender sensitivity in language or not?
March 7, 2006 -(UNDP) What is gender discrimination in language and what are its forms? Why there exists some resistance to using feminine nouns marking high positions in decision making centers? What is the message we send to the public if we don’t use gender sensitive language in public discourse?

INT'L WOMEN'S DAY: Bosnia Rape Victims Forgotten
March 7, 2006 -(IPS) "When I gave birth to her, I didn't want to see her...but on the second day, when I took her to my breast, I realised that she was the only beauty remaining in this world and so I kept her."

World Court to launch landmark Bosnia genocide case
Feb 27, 2006-(Reuters). Bosnia will accuse Serbia and Montenegro of genocide in the 1992-95 war on Monday, as the highest U.N. court opens the first trial of a state for the war crime.The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, also known as the World Court, opens the case 13 years after Bosnia sued the rump Yugoslav state from which it seceded in 1992, triggering a war in which at least 100,000 people were killed.

2005

Gender Equality Week – for the first time in BiH
December 19-22, 2005 -(UNDP) This year, the Gender Equality Week will mark the end of the joint project of the Gender government institutions, non-government organisations and UNDP BiH on implementation of the Law on Gender Equality of BiH, and present its results and the achievements.

Jury Still Out on Tribunal's Success: Now There's Record of What Happened in Former Yugoslavia
November 13, 2005 - (Cox News Service) Everything in this courtroom in the Hague, Netherlands — the rules, the decorum, the judges in scarlet robes — seems a world away from the battlefield blood, murder and mayhem around which these proceedings revolve. But observers say the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has accomplished a great deal. It has forged a new area of international law, threatening consequences for those who would commit crimes with impunity on the battlefield. Military commanders have something to think about even in the heat of war. "It's almost an assumption now that there will be a justice mechanism after conflict," said Edgar Chen, of the Washington-based non-profit Coalition for International Justice.

After Genocide, Women's Work Is to Rebuild
July 17, 2005 - (WeNews) SREBRENICA, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Last week thousands visited the field in Bosnia and Herzegovina where husbands, sons and brothers were killed in the largest European genocide since World War II. Now the women of Srebrenica go back to making life's work out of devastation.

Lenient Treatment of Wife-Beaters Deplored
February 11, 2005 - (IWPR) Womens' groups voice anger at plans to class domestic violence as a misdemeanour punishable with a fine. Sejla - not her real name - remembers family life with her husband all too well. He threatened to kill me, she said, twisting her hands nervously.

2004

Foca Confronts its Past
October 15, 2004 – (IWPR) Today in the Bosnian town of Foca, a decade after the war ended, the destroyed homes of Muslims forced to leave are still visible. The air of gloom is palpable. Foca’s misery stems in part from the unwillingness of the international donors to assist the place believed to harbour indicted war crimes suspects. It is the lingering memory of the horrible crimes that took place in the town during the war, however, that makes the atmosphere in Foca particularly dismal.

A SURVIVOR FACES HER TORMENTOR
July 2004 - (Bosnia Report) A few days ago, Nusreta Sivac came face to face with the man who ran the concentration camp where she was raped and others were killed.

MASSACRE SURVIVORS SEEK PAYOUT
July 1, 2004 - (BBC) Women survivors of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia have demonstrated to demand compensation for the failure of Dutch peacekeepers to protect the town.

IN BOSNIA, MUSLIM AND SERB WOMEN RECONCILE
June 1, 2004 — (Agence France Presse) Hundreds of Bosnian Serb and Muslim women, who viewed each other as enemies not long ago, have decided to put the past behind them for the sake of business, bringing hope for reconciliation in this war-torn country.

2OO3

SUSICA CAMP CHIEF NAMES MASS GRAVE SITE
November 7, 2003 – (IWPR'S TRIBUNAL UPDATE No. 332) Bosnian Serb prison commandant tells mother where her murdered sons lie buried.

FORGOTTEN SREBRENICA SURVIVORS
September 25, 2003 – (IWPR Balkan Crisis Report No. 461) The survivors of Srebrenica fear that the international community and some Bosnian politicians are trying to wash their hands of them.

TRADING IN MISERY
September 15, 2003 – (IWPR'S BALKAN CRISIS REPORT, No. 460) Tens of thousands of Eastern European women are falling victim to the Balkan sex trade.

SERB AT HAGUE PLEADS GUILTY TO BRUTALITIES
September 4, 2003 — (NYT) A notorious Serbian prison camp commander confessed today at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague that he was guilty of the rape, torture and murder of numerous civilians under his control during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

FIRM WITH NEW U.S. IRAQ CONTRACT DROPS BALKAN SEX CASE APPEAL
May 5, 2003 – (UN Wire) DynCorp on Friday dropped its planned appeal of a ruling that it unfairly dismissed a woman who blew the whistle on DynCorp-employed U.N. peacekeepers in Bosnia for frequenting nightclubs where girls under 15 had sex with customers. The U.S. firm's dropping of the expected appeal follows its landing last month of a $35 million U.S. State Department contract to provide police officers to Iraq.

SEX SLAVE IN BOSNIA RECOUNTS HER ORDEAL
March 18, 2003 – (IWPR'S BALKAN CRISIS REPORT) Thousands of young women are still being held as sex slaves across the country despite the authorities' efforts to stamp out the trade.

WOMEN HELPING WOMEN IN BOSNIA
February 11, 2003 – (ReliefWeb) On the 11th day of every month, Hajra Catic, from Srebrenica, joins peaceful demonstrations organized by Mothers from Srebrenica and Zepa in Tuzla and Sarajevo, demanding the truth about family members who disappeared during the Bosnian Serb campaign against their two native towns.

U.N. OFFICIAL WANTS ACTION AGAINST PERSONNEL INVOLVED WITH SEX TRADE IN BOSNIA
February 10, 2003 – (UN Wire) The United Nations' top human rights official in Bosnia, Madeleine Rees, is calling for an end to immunity for U.N. officials involved in the sex trade in Bosnia. Rees said that those involved in sex crimes in Bosnia must be brought to justice in their home countries.

2002

TRAFFICKERS WALK FREE: LOCAL CORRUPTION AND PRESENCE OF INTERNATIONALS EXACERBATE ABUSES
November 26, 2002 – (HRW) Traffickers who have forced thousands of women and girls into prostitution in Bosnia and Herzegovina are not being apprehended for their crimes, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

INVISIBLE CASUALTIES OF WAR
November 18, 2002 - (Institute for War and Peace Reporting's Balkan Crisis Report) Bosnia's raped women are being shunned by a society that refuses to see them as victims.

MEN KIDNAPPED, RAPED WOMEN IN BOSNIA - UN
July 26, 2002 - (AP article in The Chronicle-Herald - Nova Scotia) Armed men kidnapped six women working at a nightclub in central Bosnia and allegedly raped and beat them before releasing all but one, UN officials said Thursday.

BOSNIAN SERB REFUSES TO CHARGES OF RUNNING HOUSE WHERE WOMEN WERE RAPED
July 12, 2002 – (AP article in The Canadian Press) A Bosnian Serb declined to enter a plea Friday before the UN war crimes court on charges that he ran a house where women and girls were enslaved and raped during Bosnia's 1992-1995 war.

REFUGEE WOMEN VISIT TOWN WHERE THEIR HUSBANDS WERE KILLED DURING THE WAR
May 11, 2002 - (AP article in The Canadian Press) Dozens of Muslim refugee women Whose husbands were murdered during the Bosnian war arrived in their prewar home of Bratunac on Saturday to mourn at the sites where their men were rounded up and killed, and where their bodies were later dumped.

TEENAGERS USED FOR SEX BY UN IN BOSNIA
April 12, 2002 – (The Telegraph) A HUMAN rights investigator who claims she was sacked for exposing the sexual abuse of Bosnian women by her United Nations colleagues, told a tribunal yesterday that girls as young as 15 were offered for sex.

VICTIMS OF BOSNIA’S SEX TRADE
March 22, 2002 – (BBC – Bosnia) There are several of them, all in a row, garish motels on one of the main roads through Bosnia.

2001

FAMILIES AT WAR
September 4, 2001- (From Institute for War and Peace Report #277) High unemployment, economic hardship and broken family ties have fuelled domestic violence in post-war Bosnia. Julie Poucher Harbin in Sarajevo reports.

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA HAS HIGHEST PERCENTAGE OF WOMEN IN POLITICAL OFFICE IN SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE
August 7, 2001 – (OSCE) Bosnia and Herzegovina has the highest percentage of women in political office of all 12 countries covered by the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe. This is outlined by a report issued by the OSCE-sponsored Working Group on Gender Equality of the Stability Pact, summarizing the Group’s work in the last two years

SREBRENICA WOMEN OUTRAGED BY SENTENCE; 'LET HIM COME (HERE) . . . AND WE WILL GIVE HIM JUSTICE.'
August 3, 2001 – (AP article in The Chronicle-Herald – Nova Scotia) Suhra Malic spat at the television screen as she watched the UN war crimes court sentence a Bosnian Serb general to 46 years in prison for his role in genocide against Muslims in the UN-protected enclave of Srebrenica.

UN POLICE ACCUSED OF PROSTITUTION COVER-UP
June 14, 2001 - (AP article in The Record – Waterloo, Ontario) Kathryn Bolkovac left her job as a veteran police officer in Lincoln, Neb., to take on a very different kind of law enforcement -- a UN police post cracking down on forced prostitution in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

CONVICTIONS OF BOSNIAN SERBS OPENS DOOR TO OTHERS; TRAIL-BLAZING RULING: WAR RAPES
March 7, 2001 – (The Hamilton Spectator Opinion Piece) For centuries, rape during wartime has inspired little more than shrugs. But that is now changing. In a milestone ruling for women last month, a UN war-crimes tribunal convicted three Bosnian Serbs of raping Muslim women and girls during the Bosnian conflict. Two were found guilty of sexual slavery. The men received jail terms ranging from 28 to 12 years.

POLICE ARREST 223 PEOPLE IN PROSTITUTION CRACKDOWN IN BOSNIA
March 3, 2001 - (AP article in The Canadian Press) Hundreds of police officers raided brothels throughout Bosnia on Saturday, arresting 223 people in a crackdown on prostitution and human trafficking.

2000

WOMEN LIED ABOUT RAPES IN BOSNIA, DEFENCE CLAIMS AT WAR CRIMES TRIAL
November 22, 2000 - (AP article in The Record – Waterloo, Ontario) Lawyers for three Bosnian Serbs accused of raping Muslim women argued yesterday that the women made up their accounts of torture, gang rape and sexual enslavement.

SERBS THROW STONES AT BUSES CARRYING MUSLIM WOMEN BACK TO HOMETOWN
May 12, 2000 - (AP article in The Canadian Press) Four buses carrying Muslim women back to their hometowns after they had been expelled during the Bosnian war were pelted with stones thrown by Bosnian Serbs. Several people were injured.

1998

ACTORS RALLY FOR RIGHTS
August 10, 1998 – (The Record – Waterloo, Ontario) U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton teamed up with Glenn Close and Marisa Tomei to champion women's rights in post-war Bosnia.

Close and Tomei travelled to Sarajevo to join Bosnian actors in a Saturday production of Necessary Targets, a play by Eve Ensler about women traumatized by war in the former Yugoslavian province.

In a public letter written for weekend ceremonies surrounding a project to honor female war victims in the region, Clinton called on Bosnian women to cast votes in next month's elections that reject "ethnic tensions of the past in favor of a united, multi-ethnic Bosnia where your families can prosper."

NOT ALL ALLEGATIONS ABOUT PEACEKEEPERS CAN BE PROVED: BARIL: 22 OF 60 DISCIPLINED OVER ROLE IN BOSNIA
June 9, 1998 - (Canadian Press article in The Hamilton Spectator) The country's top soldier said yesterday that incidents involving Canadian peacekeepers in the former Yugoslavia weren't as serious as he first believed.

1995

PROTEST GIVES WAR A HUMAN FACE
August 3, 1995 – (The Record - Waterloo, Ontario) For eight Bosnian refugee children standing on the outdoor stage at Kitchener's City Hall Wednesday, war has been a daily reality for at least half their lives.

1993

CAMPAIGN SEEKS SUPPLIES TO AID BOSNIAN WOMEN
October 18, 1993 – (Toronto Star) A group of women has launched a campaign to collect essential toiletries and other supplies to send to war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina.

MEDIA IGNORES CRISIS: MASS RAPES IN BOSNIA AREN'T SEXY ANY MORE, THEY'RE JUST TRAGIC
August 9, 1993 – (The Record – Waterloo, Ontario) Eight months ago, in a maternity hospital in Zagreb, a British journalist and a French camera crew degenerated into an undignified tussle over the bed of a teenage girl who was pregnant after being raped by a Serbian.

VIGIL FOR BOSNIAN RAPE VICTIMS WOMAN SHARES VISION OF FACES BEHIND STATS
March 8, 1993 – (The Hamilton Spectator) ABOUT 60 people carrying candles in support of women systematically raped in Bosnia-Herzegovina marched from city hall to the MacNab Street YWCA last night in a show of solidarity for abused women worldwide.

TWO BOSNIAN WOMEN SUE SERB LEADER, CHARGING RAPE
February 13, 1993 - (Reuter-Special in Toronto Star) Two Bosnian women have filed a multimillion-dollar civil suit against the leader of the Bosnian Serbs, charging him with rape and other human rights violations.

MASS RAPE IN BOSNIA 20,000 WOMEN, MOSTLY MUSLIMS, HAVE BEEN ABUSED BY SERB SOLDIERS
January 23, 1993 – (Hamilton Spectator) During a night of unimaginable horror when she was raped by at least 15 Serb soldiers, Amela, a 25-year-old Bosnian, had no doubt why she'd been singled out for such bestiality.

ORGANIZED RAPE ASSISTS PLAN FOR 'ETHNIC CLEANSING'
January 23, 1993 – (Hamilton Spectator) Throughout the ages, rape has often been a byproduct of war, but rarely has it been practised on such a mass scale as now in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

 

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