VIGIL FOR BOSNIAN RAPE VICTIMS: WOMAN SHARES VISION OF FACES BEHIND STATS
By Jim Holt

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.

One who took part in the candlelight vigil was Mira Khattab, who returned to Hamilton last month after having cared for war victims in a refugee camp on the Adriatic coast.

'The statistics of violence against women are staggering,' she told a crowd gathered on the steps of city hall. 'But, the face behind the statistic hits you harder and stays with you and bolsters your commitment to try with all you've got to stop the violence.

'I appeal to all people to show your opposition to these crimes against humanity.'

Victims of rape

During her month-long stay in the refugee camp, Ms Khattab cared for women of all ages, she said, who were victims of systematic rape committed largely by Serbian troops as part of a regime of 'ethnic cleansing.'

Amnesty International released two reports in January on the sexual degradation of women in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

It said, although Muslim women are the main victims and Serbian troops the main culprits, Croatian and Muslim forces also commonly hunt women for the specific purpose of sexually abusing them.

Renate Manthei, director of the Women's Centre of Hamilton-Wentworth, noted that the vigil was intended to be a non-partisan condemnation of violence against all women worldwide.

'We want to remember women all over the world who have suffered such degradation,' she said, citing the recent atrocities in the former Yugoslavia.

As vigil participants -- mostly women and some children -- stood listening to the speakers and cupping their hands around the candle flames, they were reminded of the hardships endured by victims of war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

'Women of conscience'

'There is no electricity and no heat in Bosnia and it is colder than it is here,' Ms Khattab said.

'Not since Nazism has there been such a genocide of a country's people

as has been undertaken in Bosnia,' she said. 'We are here tonight because we are women of conscience.'

Elvira Krackovic, chairwoman of the Hamilton and District Council of Women's Task Force on Violence Against Women and Children in Wartime, said: 'How can the world allow such atrocities to continue? We need to reach someone, somewhere, somehow and soon.'

The European Community estimates 20,000 Bosnian women have been raped.

The Croatian health ministry believes one-third of all those held in camps in Bosnia have been raped, including six-year-old girls and 80-year-old women.

Ms Khattab said suicide and severe depression are becoming commonplace in the Bosnian camps. She said some victims of systematic rape were raped repeatedly, some in view of family members.

After an hour of listening to the reports of atrocities, participants marched down the steps of city hall to Main Street, east to MacNab and south to the YWCA.

Some of the placards read: 'Make rape a war crime,' 'Stop sexual terrorism' and 'Stop war.'

Vigil organizers, the Women's Centre of Hamilton-Wentworth and Womyn International of Los Angeles, plan to urge External Affairs Minister Barbara McDougall to take the lead in demanding the United Nations document the rapes as war crimes.