By Margarita Windisch
MELBOURNE — The group People Against Rape in Bosnia Hercegovina and Croatia is organising a rally on Mother's Day,
May 9.
The group is made up of members from the Croatian community, the Bosnian Muslim community, Interlink and other activists. The main objectives are to highlight the issue of rape in war, to generate action and to bring about justice for all women who have been violated.
A European Community commission has estimated that about 20,000
women have been victims of organised rape in Bosnia alone. Taking into account rapes in Croatia this number climbs to 30,000, and these figures are relatively conservative estimates! The age of rape victims varies from four years to 80 years. The women are usually gang raped in front of each other or in front of family members.
Linda Paric, a spokesperson for the group, stresses that rape is not a mere by-product but an instrument of war.
Systematic rape, enforced pregnancies and the establishment of rape camps have become important tools to break the resistance of the population, to humiliate, terrorise and "ethnically cleanse" a society. Rape is being institutionalised and seen as a "normal and natural" part of war.
So far the UN has not stopped a single rape, said Paric. In Sarajevo's notorious Cafe Sonja, only a stone's throw far away from the UN headquarters, women have been gang raped for a long time, their plight ignored and their desperate calls for help left unanswered.
Reports from Bosnia suggest that the Blue Berets only add to the misery of women through active involvement in sexual abuse.
People Against Rape in Bosnia and Croatia has raised several demands to immediately help bring justice to rape victims. These include:
- Using force if necessary to close rape camps.
- Medical and other assistance to rape victims.
- The treatment of systematic rape and enforced pregnancies as war crimes.
- The setting up of an emergency human rights tribunal through which women can take sexual abusers to trial, even in peacetime.
People are urged to write in support of these demands to: The Secretary General, World Conference on Human Rights, Centre for Human Rights, UN Palais des Nations, Geneva 1211, Switzerland; and to en, Chairman, Commissioner of Experts on former Yugoslavia, UN Palais des Nations, Geneva 1211, Switzerland.
People Against Rape in Bosnia and Croatia urges all concerned people to join the May 9 rally.