WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY RESOURCES: BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Civil Society and NGO Reports, Papers and Statements

Final Report:Monitoring and Implementation of UN SCR 1325 in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Women to Women (Zene Zenama), October 2007
In Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH) the civil society sector is generally familiar with the UNSCR1325 and its importance for women’s participation in all levels of society. Women’s organizations have contributed to the implementation of the Resolution in a number of official and informal trainings, consultations and networking with governmental institutions. The women's organization Zene Zenama implemented the monitoring project in BiH. The monitoring report is a result of an ongoing work since 2005 and provides an assessment of the implementation of the UNSCR1325 in BiH, with the aim of ensuring successful ongoing advocacy of gender issues at the national level. These efforts have been supported by UNIFEM through its programme: “Implementing UNSCR1325 on Women, Peace and Security”.

For the full report, please click HERE

Executive Summary on the Implementation of UNSC Resolution 1325
Women to Women (Zene Zenama), October 2007
The 2007 monitoring project undertaken by Women to Women in conjunction with partners and in close collaboration with UNIFEM assessed the implementation of the Resolution 1325 in Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to assure successful advocacy for UNSCR1325 at national level.

For the full report, please click HERE

To Make Room for change - Peace Strategies from Women Organisations in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Kvinna Till Kvinna, May 2006
The report highlights the connection between women’s participation, an independent civil society and lasting peace and democracy.The report describes women’s organisations’ concrete strategies to create a democratic and peaceful society, in urban as well as rural areas. It shows what support and acknowledgement from the international community means for civil society. But the report also highlights problems that arise when international actors take over and marginalise national and local organisations. The situation is not unique, the pattern is the same in most conflict-affected regions throughout the world.

Trafficking in Women and Girls in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Additional Documents
Human Rights Watch, June 2004
Human Rights Watch submitted a number of requests to the U.S. government for documents relating to trafficking in persons in Bosnia pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act. Two years after our initial request, we obtained a limited number of documents. A selection of documents, some redacted in part by the U.S. government, is available through the links below. These documents corroborate Human Rights Watch’s findings in its November 2002 report, “Hopes Betrayed: Trafficking of Women and Girls to Bosnia and Herzegovina for Forced Prostitution.”

Rethink: A Handbook for Sustainable Peace
Kvinna Till Kvinna, 5 March 2004
We want to demonstrate how simple it is to make women become actors in the process of creating a sustainable peace. We also want to show how much there is to gain –for everyone –when women enjoy the power and the means to fully participate in processes of peace and reconstruction.

New methods to combat sexualised violence
Kvinna Til Kvinna, Press Release, 14 November 2003
One third of the world’s women have been exposed to gender related violence. Croatia is a country affected by war and conflict. Frustration and uncertainty about the future is widespread among the population and men’s sexualised violence against women has increased. Many of these acts of violence are sexual in kind. This makes it even more difficult for organisations that strive to draw attention to the problem and to prevent the violence.

Hopes Betrayed: Trafficking of Women and Girls to Post-Conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina for Forced Prostitution
Human Rights Watch, November 2002
In an extensive investigation from 1999 through 2001, Human Rights Watch uncovered conclusive evidence of widespread trafficking of women and girls into the sex industry throughout both Bosnian entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska. Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed trafficking victims from Ukraine, Romania, and Moldova, reviewed trafficking cases obtained from NGOs, court documents, and verbatim victim statements to identify trends and common abuses along the trafficking chain. Moreover, the researcher interviewed UNMIBH officials, IPTF officers, representatives of international organizations, leaders of NGOs, as well as Bosnian judges, prosecutors, and police officers. UNMIBH took positive steps between 1999 and 2001 to protect the human rights of trafficked persons, particularly through support for an IOM program to shelter and repatriate victims and the creation of the STOP anti-trafficking law enforcement units. The report concludes however that despite some progress, UNMIBH, U.N. member states, and the Bosnian government have failed to combat trafficking effectively and to end impunity for this modern-day slave trade.

UN Resolution 1325 – An instrument for gender equality or a paper tiger?
Kvinna Till Kvinna, Press Release, 10 March 2002
The representation of women in peace negotiations and reconstruction of war-thorn countries is strikingly low, even though many women are more inclined then men to find peaceful solutions to conflicts. After pressure from the women’s movement around the world, the UN Security Council has adopted a resolution to come to terms with this problem. Resolution 1325 is a legally binding document that calls upon the UN member states to pay attention to, and specifically consider, women’s vulnerable situation in times of war. Moreover, 1325 urges the member states to involve women in processes of peace-building and conflict resolution.
At the Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation’s ten-year anniversary conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in August, approximately one hundred women from the former Yugoslavia, Albania, Georgia and Israel met to discuss women’s participation in conflict communities.

A National NGO Report on Women’s Human Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Humanitarian Practice Network
BiH is party to the Women’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (the Women’s Convention) by virtue of having signed the Dayton Peace Agreement. In addition, the Federation Constitution (in its Annex) directly incorporates the Women’s Convention among a list of 21 international documents similarly incorporated into Federation Law. As part of its obligations as a signatory to the Women’s Convention, the Federation is required to submit periodic reports to the Convention’s supervisory body, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Conference Report – Trafficking in Human Beings for the Purposes of Sexual Exploitation
Humanitarian Practice Network, 16–17 December 1998
This conference was organised by the Council of Europe as part of its initiative in the field of equality between men and women. The conference was convened because little concrete evidence had been obtained with regard to trafficking.

UN Documents

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
United Nations, official website, current

Bosnian Women's Initiative: The New Bosnia and Herzegovina Women's Initiative
UN High Commissioner for Refugees, November 2001

General Assembly: "Rape and the abuse of women in the areas of armed conflict in the former Yugoslavia."
A/51/619/Add.3 and Corr.1 Expresses its outrage that the deliberate and systematic practice of rape has been used as a weapon of war and an instrument of ethnic cleansing against women and children in Bosnia and Herzegovina; Reaffirms that rape in the conduct of armed conflict constitutes a war crime and that under certain circumstances it constitutes a crime against humanity and an act of genocide as defined in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and calls upon States to take all measures required for the protection of women and children from such acts and to strengthen mechanisms to investigate and punish all those responsible and bring the perpetrators to justice.

"Rape and abuse of women in the areas of armed conflict in the former Yugoslavia"
A/RES/51/115: resolution adopted by the General Assembly, 7 March 1997

Addressing Gender-based Violence, “If Not Now, When?”
Hermina Roque, United Nations Chronicle
According to the report, the stimulus for GBV, particularly for sexual crimes committed in armed conflict, varies. Sexual violence can be capricious or random, resulting from a breakdown in social and moral systems. In addition, it may be systematic, in order to destabilize populations and destroy bonds within communities, advance ethnic cleansing, express hatred for the enemy, or supply combatants with sexual services. In Bosnia, for example, public rape of women and girls preceded the flight or expulsion of entire Muslim populations from their villages, and strategies of ethnic cleansing included forced impregnation.

Trafficking and Prostitution: The Growing Exploitation of Migrant Women from Central and Eastern Europe
International Organization for Migration, May 1995
This study is one of the first of its kind to examine systematically the ways in which, and the reasons why, a growing number of women from Central and Eastern Europe are trafficked to Western Europe in the early 1990's. The report reveals weaknesses in data collection by local and national authorities as well as at the international level and highlights the debate of the time on what exactly constitutes trafficking.

Government Statements and Reports

Combined initial, second and third reports to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Wome. The Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina , CEDAW/C/BIH/1-3, 18 April 2005

For the full reports, please click HERE.

Human Rights / Rule of Law: Gender Equality
Office of the High Representative, Paddy Ashdown, 1 May 2001
Discrimination in Bosnia and Herzegovina takes place not just on the familiar grounds of ethnicity and political opinion, but also on the basis of gender. The economic and political changes until 1991, coupled with the recent war have had a significant negative impact on the status of women in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Overall, women’s participation in political and public life has declined; their employment prospects have worsened; and more women are subject to domestic violence than before the war. In addition, although women are represented in the judiciary and other professional fields, their representation at senior positions is far from commensurate with their representation in the population.

Books, Journals and Articles

What is a War Crime?
Tarik Kafala, BBC News Online, 31 July 2003
The trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and others accused of war crimes at The Hague is being seen as a crucial test of international law and international legal institutions.
But what exactly are war crimes? What body of laws do they refer to and who has the right to try a suspect for such crimes? In February 2001, the tribunal in The Hague delivered a ruling that made mass systematic rape and sexual enslavement in a time of war a crime against humanity. Mass rape, or rape used as a tool of war, was then elevated from being a violation of the customs of war to one of the most heinous war crimes of all - second only to genocide.

" The Status of Rape as a War Crime in International Law: Changes Introduced After the Wars in the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda"
Vesna Kesic, South Eastern European Women's Legal Initiative (SEELINE), M.A. Thesis, December 2001
Legally, this change became effective with the establishment of the International War Crime Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in February 1993, (ICTY) and the Tribunal for Rwanda, 1995 (ICTR). The Statute of the ICTY is the first international legal document that singles out rape as a crime against humanity. This means that rape, to be prosecuted under that section, requires proof that the act was part of a widespread or systematic attack "against a civilian population on national, political, ethnic, racial or religious grounds.”

Rape as a War Crime
David J. Scheffer, Ambassador-at-large for War Crimes, Fordham University, New York. 29 October 1999
The crime of rape has long existed under customary international law. The Leiber Code listed rape as a specific offense, and made it a capital offense. The Hague Conventions, World War II prosecutions, and the Geneva Conventions all reinforced the prohibitions on rape and other sexual violence. Although it was not codified in their Charter, some evidence of sexual violence was presented before the International Military Tribunals, after World War II, most notably, before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East where rape was first specifically referenced in the judgments. Unfortunately, in the Tokyo Trials, acts of sexual violence and rape were not placed at a level that would allow them to stand alone.

Women for Peace
Stasa Zajovic (Ed). Women in Black: Belgrade, September 1999

Migration and Refugee Policy on the Eastern Border of the European Union
Kari Hakola (Ed.). University of Jyvaaskylaa: Finland, 1998

In Bosnia, Politics Is Our Obligation: An Interview with Mevlida Kunosic-Vlajic
Mary Jane Sullivan with Mevlida Kunosic-Vlajic, Interview, War Resisters League, Nonviolent Activist, November-December 1996

Calling the Ghosts: A Story about Rape, War and Women
Julia Ormond (Executive Producer) and Mandy Jacobson and Karmen Jelincic (Directors). Film. 1996

I Remember / Sjecam Se: Writings by Bosnian Women Refugees
Radmila Manojlovic Zarkovic. (Ed.). Aunt Lute Books, 1996

Rape as a Weapon of War and a Tool of Political Repression
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch investigations in the former Yugoslavia, Peru, Kashmir, and Somalia reveal that rape and sexual assault of women are an integral part of conflicts, whether international or internal in scope.1 We found that rape of women civilians has been deployed as a tactical weapon to terrorize civilian communities or to achieve "ethnic cleansing," a tool in enforcing hostile occupations, a means of conquering or seeking revenge against the enemy, and a means of payment for mercenary soldiers.