Eastern Europe

Women and the Atrocities of War

Citation:

Stephens, Beth, and Mary Ann Dadisman. 1993. “Women and the Atrocities of War.” American Bar Association 20 (3): 12–15.

Authors: Beth Stephens, Mary Ann Dadisman

Abstract:

The article highlights the need to revise the manner in which violence against women is addressed by international law as of 1003. Worldwide, women have called on the United Nations to incorporate women's human rights concerns into the international human rights agenda, particularly the right to be free from physical abuse. The widespread reporting of the brutal rapes inflicted on Moslem women by Bosnian Serb forces over the last year has given an unprecedented visibility to rapes committed during war. Estimates of the number of women raped--many repeatedly--range from several thousand to 20,000 and higher. Rapes have been committed in detention camps, including special prostitution camps, in homes and villages. There are several ways to approach the application of international law to the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Customary international law includes the basic human rights norms that cannot be derogated and are recognized as binding on all nations. It applies during war as well as during peace, prohibiting gross human rights violations. Many of the norms governing the conduct of war have been recognized as customary international law, binding on all parties whether or not they have ratified the Geneva Conventions or any other international agreement.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Ethnic/Communal Wars, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, International Law, International Human Rights, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Rights, Human Rights, Sexual Violence, Male Perpetrators, Rape, SV against Women Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Year: 1993

Mass Rape: The War Against Women in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Citation:

Stiglmayer, Alexandra. 1994. Mass Rape: The War Against Women in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

Author: Alexandra Stiglmayer

Abstract:

Alexandra Stiglmayer interviewed survivors of the continuing war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in order to reveal, to a seemingly deaf world, the horrors of the ongoing war in the former Yugoslavia. The women—primarily of Muslim but also of Croatian and Serbian origin—have endured the atrocities of rape and the loss of loved ones. Their testimony, published in the 1993 German edition, is bare, direct, and its cumulative effect overwhelming.

The first English edition contains Stiglmayer's updates to her own two essays, one detailing the historical context of the current conflict and the other presenting the core of the book, interviews with some twenty victims of rape as well as interviews with three Serbian perpetrators. Essays investigating mass rape and war from ethnopsychological, sociological, cultural, and medical perspectives are included.

New essays by Catharine A. MacKinnon, Rhonda Copelon, and Susan Brownmiller address the crucial issues of recognizing the human rights of women and children. A foreword by Roy Gutman describes war crimes within the context of the UN Tribunal, and an afterword by Cynthia Enloe relates the mass rapes of this war to developments and reactions in the international women's movement.

Accounts of torture, murder, mutilation, abduction, sexual enslavement, and systematic attempts to impregnate—all in the name of "ethnic cleansing"—make for the grimmest of reading. However brutal and appalling the information conveyed here, this book cannot and should not be ignored. (Amazon)

Topics: Armed Conflict, Ethnic/Communal Wars, Ethnicity, Gender, Women, Justice, International Tribunals & Special Courts, Rights, Human Rights, Sexual Violence, Male Perpetrators, Rape, Sexual Slavery, SV against Women, Torture Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 1994

On the Battleground of Women's Bodies: Mass Rape in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Citation:

Snyder, Cindy S., Wesley J. Gabbard, J. Dean May, and Nihada Zulcic. 2006. “On the Battleground of Women’s Bodies: Mass Rape in Bosnia-Herzegovina.” Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work 21 (2): 184-95.

Authors: Cindy S. Snyder, Wesley J. Gabbard, J. Dean May, Nihada Zulcic

Abstract:

This article critically reviews the literature pertaining to mass rape during times of war to identify and understand the unique factors that promote it. A greater understanding of these factors is considered a productive initial step toward proffering effective solutions to address this significant problem. The former Yugoslavia, particularly Bosnia-Herzegovina, serves as a case study against which this literature is reviewed. The authors conclude that women's experience of rape in war, like the abuse of women's human rights, is often determined by the intersection of a variety of factors, such as age, race, class, religion, ethnicity, and nationality. Future studies should further explore how these complex variables relate to each other in an attempt to understand the horrific crimes that are often perpetrated against women during wartime.

Keywords: Bosnia, Yugoslavia, war, rape

Topics: Armed Conflict, Ethnic/Communal Wars, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Year: 2006

Embodiment of Terror: Gendered Violence in Peacetime and Wartime in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina

Citation:

Olujic, Maria B. 1998. “Embodiment of Terror: Gendered Violence in Peacetime and Wartime in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 12 (1): 31–50.

Author: Maria B. Olujic

Abstract:

Gendered violence is not a special type of torture used only in war. Its roots are well established in peacetime. This article discusses parallels between the patterns of everyday domination and aggression during times of peace and war. Further, it discusses how metaphors and acts of rape in peacetime are transformed into symbols and acts of rape for wartime purposes. During peacetime the individual body, especially its essence--sexuality and reproduction--becomes the symbol of everyday domination and aggression. Wartime transforms individual bodies into social bodies as seen, for example, in genocidal rapes or ethnic cleansing, which are thought to purify the bloodlines. Then, institutions--that is, medical, religious, and government establishments--further reinforce the wartime process by manipulating the individual/social body into the body politic by controlling and defining "human life" and using political rapes to entice military action by the West. The final transformation (at the war's conclusion) is the reformation of the social body back into the individual body, making the individual body once again the focus of dominance and aggression as the acceptable social "order."

Topics: Armed Conflict, Ethnic/Communal Wars, Gender, Gender-Based Violence, Religion, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women, Sexuality, Torture, Sexual Torture Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia

Year: 1998

Bosnian Refugee Women in (Re)Settlement: Gender Relations and Social Mobility

Citation:

Franz, Barbara. 2003. “Bosnian Refugee Women in (Re)Settlement: Gender Relations and Social Mobility.” Feminist Review 73 (1): 86-103.

Author: Barbara Franz

Abstract:

Bosnian refugee women adapted more quickly than their male partners to their host environments in Vienna and New York City because of their self-understanding and their traditional roles and social positions in the former Yugoslavia. Refugee women's integration into host societies has to be understood through their specific historical experiences. Bosnian women in exile today continue to be influenced by traditional role models that were prevalent in the former Yugoslavia's 20th-century patriarchal society. Family, rather than self-fulfillment through wage labor and emancipation, is the center of life for Bosnian women. In their new environment, Bosnian refugee women are pushed into the labor market and work in low-skill and low-paying jobs. Their participation in the labor market, however, is not increasing their emancipation in part because they maintain their traditional understanding of zena (women) in the patriarchal culture. While Bosnian women's participation in low-skill labor appeared to be individual families’ decisions more in New York City than in Vienna, in the latter almost all Bosnian refugee women in my sample began to work in the black labor market because of restrictive employment policies. In contrast to men, women were relatively nonselective and willing to take any available job. Men, it seems, did not adapt as quickly as women to restrictions in the labor market and their loss of social status in both host societies. Despite their efforts, middle-class families in New York City and Vienna experienced substantial downward mobility in their new settings. Women's economic and social downward mobility in (re)settlement, however, did not significantly change the self-understanding of Bosnian women. Their families' future and advancements socially and economically, rather than the women's own independence and emancipation remained the most important aspect of their being.

Keywords: Bosnian refugee women, gendered employment, self-perception of men and women, social mobility, patriarchy, family

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Refugees, Ethnicity, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Livelihoods Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Year: 2003

Therapeutic Work With Victims of Sexual Violence in War and Postwar: A Discourse Analysis of Bosnian Experiences

Citation:

Skjelsbæk, Inger. 2006. “Therapeutic Work With Victims of Sexual Violence in War and Postwar: A Discourse Analysis of Bosnian Experiences.” Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 12 (2): 93–118.

Author: Inger Skjelsbæk

Abstract:

This article presents a discourse analysis of 23 interviews with local Bosnian health workers at 2 different psychosocial centers. The main premise for the study is based on the acknowledgment that many victims of war rape will choose to remain silent about their ordeals, and studies of this particular war phenomenon must therefore be based, in part, on other local voices in the field. The main focus is on the ways in which the health workers describe their work with victims of sexual violence in the Bosnian war and postwar settings. Through their descriptions we gain unique insight into how the issue of war rape was addressed and dealt with at a local level. Further, on a general level, the study shows that the impact of sexual violence in war varies according to context, an insight that has implications not only for our general understanding of the phenomenon, but also in the use of particular therapy methods. These therapy methods must balance between the assumptions that there are universal effects of sexual violence that cut across various contexts and cultural relativism that assumes the opposite.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Health, Mental Health, Trauma, Humanitarian Assistance, Context-Appropriate Response to Trauma, Post-Conflict, Sexual Violence, Rape Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Year: 2006

Leaving the Past Behind? When Victims of Trafficking Decline Assistance

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

Post-Conflict Programmes for Women: Lessons from the Kosovo Women's Initiative

Citation:

Kalungu-Banda, Agnes. 2004. “Post-Conflict Programmes for Women: Lessons from the Kosovo Women's Initiative.” Gender & Development 12 (3): 31-40.

Author: Agnes Kalungu-Banda

Abstract:

This paper considers the relationship between the concept of participation in development and the concept of sustainable development in the aftermath of a war. For sustainable development to take place after a period of armed conflict, the intended beneficiaries of a reconstruction programme must be supported to take charge of the process, and hence own the results. 

Topics: Armed Conflict, Development, Gender, Women, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Kosovo

Year: 2004

Gender, Violence, and Human Security: Critical Feminist Perspectives

Citation:

Tripp, Aili Mari, Myra Max Ferree, and Christina Ewig, eds. 2013. Gender, Violence, and Human Security: Critical Feminist Perspectives. New York: NYU Press.

Authors: Aili Mari Tripp, Myra Max Ferree, Christina Ewig

Abstract:

The nature of human security is changing globally: interstate conflict and even intrastate conflict may be diminishing worldwide, yet threats to individuals and communities persist. Large-scale violence by formal and informal armed forces intersects with interpersonal and domestic forms of violence in mutually reinforcing ways. Gender, Violence, and Human Security takes a critical look at notions of human security and violence through a feminist lens, drawing on both theoretical perspectives and empirical examinations through case studies from a variety of contexts around the globe.

This fascinating volume goes beyond existing feminist international relations engagements with security studies to identify not only limitations of the human security approach, but also possible synergies between feminist and human security approaches. Noted scholars Aili Mari Tripp, Myra Marx Ferree, and Christina Ewig, along with their distinguished group of contributors, analyze specific case studies from around the globe, ranging from post-conflict security in Croatia to the relationship between state policy and gender-based crime in the United States. Shifting the focus of the term “human security” from its defensive emphasis to a more proactive notion of peace, the book ultimately calls for addressing the structural issues that give rise to violence. A hard-hitting critique of the ways in which global inequalities are often overlooked by human security theorists, Gender, Violence, and Human Security presents a much-needed intervention into the study of power relations throughout the world.

Keywords: Gender, security, human security

Topics: Armed Conflict, Domestic Violence, Feminisms, Gender, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Security, Human Security, Violence Regions: Americas, North America, Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Croatia, United States of America

Year: 2013

'Giving Memory a Future': Confronting the Legacy of Mass Rape in Post-Conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina

Citation:

Todorova, Teodora. 2011. “'Giving Memory a Future': Confronting the Legacy of Mass Rape in Post-Conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina.” Journal of International Women's Studies 12 (2): 3-15.

Author: Teodora Todorova

Abstract:

Responses to the prevalence of wartime rape in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the 1990s civil war has been characterised by a conflicting paradox between the international legal attempts by the ICTY to prosecute perpetrators, and Bosnian society’s silence, marginalisation of individual victims, and the pronounced desire to “forget” about certain aspects of wartime victimisation. Given that the contemporary prospects of retributive justice and inter-ethnic reconciliation in Bosnia-Herzegovina remain a distant prospect, the question of what can be done to reassert the ethical value of the victims of mass rape and violence continues to be of great importance. Minow’s response to this question is that even if the rigor of prosecution and punishment are not pursued, some other form of public acknowledgement, overcoming communal denial, is the very least that can be done to restore dignity to victims‟ (1998: 17).  Pertaining to this, women’s testimonies of wartime violation have resulted in the conception of critical and reflective cultural texts such as the two analysed in this paper. As if I Am Not There (Drakilić, 1999) and Esma’s Secret (Žbanić, 2006) attempt to confront Bosnian society about its neglect of the women who suffered wartime rape. The texts further broach the subject of the social significance of the children who were born as a result of these rapes. The underlying focus of these texts is an attempt to propose and work towards a vision of post-conflict Bosnian society based on a future of reconciliation and the refusal to differentiate along ethnic lines.

Keywords: post-conflict, narrative, reconciliation

Topics: Gender-Based Violence, Justice, War Crimes, Post-Conflict, Sexual Violence, Rape Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Year: 2011

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