HEA: Kosovo war raped, hopeless for justice

The international human rights organisation Amnesty International says that nearly two decades after thousands of women and girls in Kosovo were systematically raped during the 1998-99 armed conflict, survivors are ready to receive the recognition and compensation long-awaited for the rape and torture they have experienced. However, only a handful of authors have been convicted of these crimes, and survivors are still fighting for justice.

In a report of this organisation that is published Wednesday under the title “Plagus that burn our souls: Compensation for survivors of wartime rapes but still without justice” reveals the devastating physical and psychological effects of sexual violence suffered by survivors, who have so far been marginalised by society and have not received government support.

The survivors of terrible sexual violence have been disappointed by the international community and successive governments for years. The authors have fled prosecution while survivors are marginalised, forgotten and denied access to justice. This is starting to change, but there is still a long road ahead of”, Amnesty International's deputy director for Europe, Gau van Gulick, reports VOA.

Rape and other forms of sexual violence were widespread during the Kosovo war, as Serbian police, paramilitaries and the Yugoslav Army carried out a campaign of persecution and violence against Kosovo Albanians. Albanian women and girls were subjected to rape and other forms of sexual violence that constitute torture. After the ceasefire, Amnesty Inernational, women and girls from Serb and Roma communities were raped in revenge attacks by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army.

Four of the Serbian military and political leaders of the former Yugoslavia were convicted of sexual violence as a crime against humanity by the International Court for War Crimes in the former Yugoslavia. Only one author from Kosovo has been sentenced to a Serbian court and no one in Kosovo, where after the UN war and December 2008, police and European Union prosecutors were responsible for investigating these crimes. International investigators, however, have often failed to track the suspects or to gather zealous testimony.

Amnesty Internatioanl says it leaves a massive challenge for war crimes prosecutors in Kosovo, who are now taking over responsibilities from international bodies. In the absence of funds, resources and political support, they will battle with a load of cases of about a thousand unresolved war crimes, including cases of sexual violence.

The organization points out that many survivors knew those who committed prominent crimes. One survivor has also offered UN investigators an identification that had fallen from a soldier's pocket while raping him, but the case has never reached the courts.

“We have no hope in justice”, a woman told Amnesty International. I was 30 when it happened, and now I'm almost 50 years old. Maybe I'll be dead by the time they solve the case.

Without any real possibility of justice for the majority, compensation is increasingly important. As one woman told Amnesty International: “rape is a wound that will burn your soul day after day. It will make you ashamed in front of your family, in your community. You'll keep it with you the rest of your life”.

Another survivor told Amnesty International that “for 18 years we have lived with hidden wounds that cannot be healed, but a pension will help us survive. It will help us with the treatment and rearing of children and at least help us spend our lives with a little respect”.

Following the legal changes in 2014, a process has already been set up for survivors to apply for support. Since January 2018 they will have the right to receive a 230-euro monthly salary in compensation for the physical, psychological, economic and social consequences of sexual violence during the conflict in their lives.

The compensation that will soon be offered to the survivors of sexual violence is financially and symbolically important, but for many, it will be very little and too late”, Gauri van Gulic said.

“Those responsible for the crimes against them must be brought to justice and authorities must provide adequate and psycho-social care that survivors need so much to overcome the trauma and rebuild their lives”, she said.

In a conversation with the Voice of America, Amnesty International's rapporteur, Sin Jones, drew attention to “the liberation of victims from the stigma under which they live”, calling on authorities to work to ensure an environment where victims will not fear to seek their rights.