Rape during the war is threatened by families not applying for retirement

These are the problems the survivors of sexual violence still face during the recent war in Kosovo.

“Brave Woman”, the award she received from the American State Department, which is also the director of the Kosovar Centre for the rehabilitation of Torture Survivors (QKRMT), Feride Rushiti, says it is necessary to impose justice for women and raped men.

“They still find it hard to share the experience with their families, to make the decision to apply, and many times they are prejudiced, but they may also be threatened by family members not to apply. So it is very important that these difficulties, these social prejudices that have our Kosovo culture, were addressed through conscious campaigns, whether through various means of communication, through your medium alone, that knowingly exposed society that these women and girls who have experienced war horrors should not be blamed for a crime that does not belong to them. Unfortunately, their bodies have been used as weapons of war, prey to the battlefield, and unwittingly the Kosovo society has left to them guilt, fingered them, made them feel ashamed of what they really shouldn't feel really ashamed, they should feel like those who committed that crime, but as society we've prejudged and isolated them for years after that normal life over their body, it says.

To have spiritual tranquillity victims of sexual violence during the war, Rushiti says he is necessary to punish the perpetrators of this crime.

“I think that access to justice for this sensitive social group is more than necessary when so far not even a single person, a boss of crime has received no deserved punishment even for these women, girls and men that they are not women and the girl unfortunately cannot find spiritual peace when they know that the bully may be in society or may be anywhere near it, Rutti tells the KP.

According to her, the reason she chose to address the rights of this category was to create a safe environment for women and men who experienced this kind of violence during the war.

It's all about seeing dozens of women, but it's also the men who were being abused in the most horrible form using sexual violence as a weapon of war. Maybe all of their stories actually made me think differently, from that original orientation as a doctor who I loved very much of a profession, I decided to position myself in the field of human rights and from that time to now I continue to be and it was September 1999 when we thought to create an organization... just to offer a safe environment, a safe home where these women, girls, and men who had experienced the horror of war, to find a place where they could share their trauma, then to have support, and then to fight in the ongoing steps until the legal recognition of other institutions that Kosovo has now declared to Kosovo.

Costing this price to all victims of sexual violence, she explains that at this price the agenda of women raped during the war in Kosovo has been placed at the international level.

It's about all of Kosovo, and I've really felt that I've been there, and it's been beyond that it's been given to me and it's honored me State Department that I think this honor belongs to all of Kosovo, but above all the women I work with and all of those activists who have contributed their voice to be heard”, Rushiti said.