Haxhere Veseli

Kosovo/Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

Thank you Ambassador Durrant for hosting this meeting and for giving an adolescent from Kosovo the opportunity to discuss a young woman’s experience of war.

My name is Haxhere Veseli. I came to the United States as a refugee on 16 June 1999, when I was 14 years old. My generation and I have not seen peace. Even before the war, we faced many difficulties. In Kosovo, over half the population is under 24 years of age. Peace for our country should address adolescents’ concerns and offer us an opportunity as active citizens.

I understand what it means to be a refugee. After the NATO bombing started in March 1999 and the Serb forces began to attack Albanians more and more, my parents decided we would be safer staying in Presheva, which shares a border with Macedonia.

Originally my parents wanted to return to Prishtina themselves. But after ten days, my parents realized they could not go back because my mother had been active with a human rights organization providing health care to women. While we were in Presheva, we found out that the Serbs were looking for people working for human rights organizations and that they were after my mother. If she stayed in Kosovo, she could be killed, and anyone who knew her or helped her was also facing a big risk.

So, we made the very difficult journey to Macedonia. We tried to cross the border three times but failed. The fourth time we tried, we were blocked, but we decided to stay and wait no matter what. In the end, we had to pay, and we were finally allowed to cross. We were at the border for 20 hours. We were all afraid, but we were lucky. In Macedonia, we stayed with a very friendly family for three months. While we were there, Serbs in Macedonia protested the fact that the Kosovars were there, and I felt that the only decision we had was to move even further away. I came to the United States through the International Rescue Committee and now I live in New York.

When I arrived, I heard from one friend that his sister, who is 17, was raped in Kosovo. We were scared, but we tried to survive.

The International Rescue Committee ran a program over the summer at Marymount College in New York, which I participated in. Many new children from Kosovo of all ages participated in the program, which also involved American teenage volunteers. Suddenly we had a whole community to be with and things to do — social activities, English language classes and more. Before the program, I just sat at home, depressed, crying and thinking about all the bad things that had happened and continued to happen back home. But at Marymount, we found space and began to relax. It really helped us.

A year later, I traveled back to Kosovo, intending to stay. But what I found in my homeland changed my mind. Teenagers lost a lot of control during the war in Kosovo. Before the war, they had their parents watching over them all of the time. During the war, as refugees, this control broke down. Their attitudes changed and many of them tried things that they would not have done before. War makes you not care about some things. You don’t know what the future holds, so some kids make decisions they would not normally make. They sold and took drugs. Some girls exchanged sex for money and access to assistance — they did his with little or no knowledge of HIV/AIDS.

A friend of mine started working with the military peacekeepers as a translator. She met a man from the United Kingdom and began an affair with him. He was outside the community and it was easy to meet him secretly. They were married while he was stationed in Kosovo. They left Kosovo after that and now live in the United Kingdom with their daughter.

This is not an exceptional story. There are many stories of relationships with the peacekeepers. In fact, we have a popular song played on the radio now that warns against having children of the peacekeepers.

Afraid for their girls, families are encouraging them to marry earlier and earlier. This is their way of making sure that girls will marry Albanians. A friend of mine has just sent me an e-mail to say that she is marrying soon, and she is only 16 years old.

This year the Security Council sent a mission to Kosovo. Ambassador Durrant, you, and some of your colleagues were able to arrange for a late night meeting with women’s organizations. You heard their concerns and included them in your mission report. However, because the meeting was held at the last minute, there was not an opportunity to hear from Kosovar youth. If you had met with them, you would have heard about projects that they are active in today. I would like to share these with you as examples of the potential role that young people can play.

• The Kosovo Youth Council has mobilized more than 2,000 young people, some of whom had been active fighters, in reconstructing their cities. Girls and boys were active in removing hate graffiti.

• The Post Pessimists have formed art and other workshops with children affected by war and organized an event called "Condom in, AIDS out" to sensitize youth to the importance of using condoms and raising awareness about HIV/AIDS. Since the arrival of peacekeepers, there is much greater fear of getting infected.

It is important for people to know where Kosovo is, what happened there and what is going on there now. Many children my age are going through similar situations in other parts of the world. My dream really is peace throughout the world. I do not want the next generation of youth in the world to ever experience the fear and inequality so many in Kosovo did. I just want teenagers to be able to be teenagers, without so many worries. They should be able to feel free — to go to school, to have no one to fight against, to laugh and be happy.

Perhaps together we can find ways to make this possible. Thank you.