The war against Bosnian women
The appalling news carried by the contingents of Bosnian women to International Women's Day rallies in Melbourne and Adelaide this year was probably the first many Australian women's movement activists had heard of the onslaught against Muslim women in the war in former Yugoslavia.
A confidential interim report prepared for the European Community Council of Ministers late last year confirmed that "rape, or the threat of rape" has been and continues to be used to further the policy of "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia by terrorising Muslims and driving them from their homes.
As early as August 1992, women's groups were attempting to get international action on organised gang rape of Muslim women held in prison camps. Only after Tresnjevka women's group, in Zagreb, Croatia, published the testimonies of camp survivors who had been raped did the United Nations Security Council become involved. Even then, UN involvement consisted of the adoption of a motion condemning "these acts of unspeakable brutality".
In a document released in September, Tresnjevka reported that women and children are almost 70% of the people killed in the republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina and 75% of the 120,000 people known to have been captured and imprisoned in the more than 100 concentration camps in the republic. They point out that these figures "attest to the fact that these are not sporadic cases but are a gender-specific onslaught that is systematic".
According to the testimony of camp survivors, women and girls between the ages of 10 and 30 in the camps are the primary objects of daily gang rapes by up to 40 or 50 Chetniks. The results of this torturous abuse includes venereal disease, internal injuries, severe psychological damage and pregnancy. Daughters are often raped in front of parents, mothers in front of children and wives in front of husbands. Children as young as six and seven have died from injuries inflicted during rape.
The Irish foreign minister, who received the classified EC report, told the British press in January that he believed there was clear evidence of "widespread rape, which formed part of a recognisable pattern, of Muslim women".
"It is clear that at least some of the rapes are being committed in particularly sadistic ways so as to inflict maximum humiliation on the victims", he said. "Rape has therefore become an instrument and not a by-product of war."
The reluctance of the EC to release the report, and the slowness of the United Nations to acknowledge the issue, have cost lives. In comparison with the shockwaves caused by the release of the first media pictures of male prisoners in the Nazi-style concentration camps in the occupied areas of Bosnia-Hercegovina, the revelations about the treatment of Muslim women have received scant attention.
The presence of Bosnian women at IWD has brought the issue to the attention of women in Australia. It is part of our internationalist obligation to spread this information. Further details may be obtained from Women's Inter-Link (WIL) at 196 Albert Rd, South Melbourne Vic 3205. Ph (03) 459 3957.
By Karen Fredericks