Serbia

Citation:

Žarkov, Dubravka. 2007. The Body of War: Media, Ethnicity, and Gender in the Break-Up of Yugoslavia. Durham: Duke University Press.

Author: Dubravka Žarkov

Abstract:

In The Body of War, Dubravka Žarkov analyzes representations of female and male bodies in the Croatian and Serbian press in the late 1980s and in the early 1990s, during the war in which Yugoslavia disintegrated. Žarkov proposes that the Balkan war was not a war between ethnic groups; rather, ethnicity was produced by the war itself. Žarkov explores the process through which ethnicity was generated, showing how lived and symbolic female and male bodies became central to it. She does not posit a direct causal relationship between hate speech published in the press during the mid-1980s and the acts of violence in the war. Instead, she argues that both the representational practices of the “media war” and the violent practices of the “ethnic war” depended on specific, shared notions of femininity and masculinity, norms of (hetero)sexuality, and definitions of ethnicity.

Tracing the links between the war and press representations of ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, Žarkov examines the media’s coverage of two major protests by women who explicitly identified themselves as mothers, of sexual violence against women and men during the war, and of women as militants. She draws on contemporary feminist analyses of violence to scrutinize international and local feminist writings on the war in former Yugoslavia. Demonstrating that some of the same essentialist ideas of gender and sexuality used to produce and reinforce the significance of ethnic differences during the war often have been invoked by feminists, she points out the political and theoretical drawbacks to grounding feminist strategies against violence in ideas of female victimhood. (Amazon)

Topics: Armed Conflict, Ethnic/Communal Wars, Combatants, Female Combatants, Ethnicity, Feminisms, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Femininity/ies, Media, Sexuality, Sexual Violence, SV against Men, SV against Women, Violence Regions: Europe, Balkans Countries: Croatia, Serbia, Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 2007

Citation:

Brunovskis, Anette, and Rebecca Surtees. 2007. Leaving the Past Behind? When Victims of Trafficking Decline Assistance. 40. Oslo: Fafo AIS and NEXUS Institute.

Authors: Anette Brunovskis, Rebecca Surtees

Abstract:

While many victims of human trafficking for sexual exploitation are assisted within the numerous anti-trafficking programmes developed in countries of destination and origin, an increasingly noted trend has been that many identified victims decline the assistance offered to them. To date, little systematic knowledge has been available on why this is so, and what the consequences are. This report analyses the issue based on interviews with 39 victims of trafficking and 13 women and transgender persons in street prostitution whose status with respect to trafficking could not be determined, as well as a large number of anti-trafficking actors, in Albania, Moldova and Serbia.

The authors found that victims decline assistance for a large variety of reasons, stemming from their personal circumstances; because of the way assistance is organized; and due to factors in their social surroundings, including negative assistance experiences in the past. Many do not accept because they feel it is not a real option, and are left to cope on their own with unattended post-trafficking problems. The insight that victims who decline often have other assistance needs than those catered for within the assistance system today should be incorporated into future assistance planning and design.

Topics: Gender, Trafficking, Human Trafficking Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Albania, Moldova, Serbia

Year: 2007

Citation:

Blagojevic, Marina. 1999. “Gender and Survival: Serbia in the 1990s.” In Construction and Reconstruction : Women, Family and Politics in Central Europe 1945-1998, edited by Andrea Pető and Béla Rásky, 187-214. Budapest: OSI.

Author: Marina Blagojevic

Topics: Gender, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Serbia

Year: 1999

Citation:

Haynes, Dina Francesca. 2004. "Used, Abused, Arrested and Deported: The Case for Extending Immigration Benefits to Protect Victims of Trafficking and Secure Prosecution of Traffickers." Human Rights Quarterly 26 (2): 221-72.

Author: Dina Francesca Haynes

Abstract:

Organized crime rings exploit 700,000 to 4 million new victims of human trafficking each year, typically luring them across borders where they are more vulnerable to abuse. Trafficking in Southeastern Europe is a relatively new phenomenon, fueled by the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, as well as the presence of international peacekeepers who have sometimes exacerbated the problem. The two main anti-trafficking models emphasize the prosecution of the trafficker or the protection of the victim, but neither adequately addresses immigration options that could serve to protect the victim and provide better evidence with which to prosecute the traffickers for their crimes.

Topics: Gender, Trafficking, Human Trafficking, Sex Trafficking Regions: Europe, Balkans Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia

Year: 2004