WOMEN RECOLLECTING MEMORIES: GENDER DIMENSION

With the inception of the wars in former Yugoslavia, women victims of war rapes became incarnated symbols and national metaphors: Raped Bosnian woman (Croat woman, Albanian woman, Serb woman…) symbolized the “raped” Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo… At the same time, the media started presenting images of sexy young women in military uniforms. Women were constructed as symbols on whose bodies all nationalisms of the region inscribed their state-funding projects and their “thousand years old dreams”. Individual women and feminist groups that did not conform to state orchestrated nationalism were declared traitors and un-feminine.

Women were the victims of ethnic conflicts, but women also played an active role in resisting to war and nationalisms. Immediately after the wars stopped, women’s suffering and sexual war violence upon them disappeared from public memory. Although peace is valued today, women’s resistance to armed conflicts and nationalisms has been erased from collective memory.

Women’s project of reconstructing memories starts from the premise that dealing with the past and memories strongly influences the processes of transitional justice, facing the past, reconciliation, seeking the truth and, inasmuch, creating conditions for stability, democratic development and lasting peace in the region. This cannot be achieved without active participation of women. If for no other reasons, then because women and women’s groups are the bearers of memories about continuous peace building activities.

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WOMEN'S LOBBY ZAGREB
Tkalčićeva 38
10000 Zagreb
Croatia
 
Zagreb, 05. December 1992
 
Our experience and history tell us the degree of violence against women increases during every war. The war on the territory of the former Yugoslavia confirms the rule. Rape is one of the most merciless crimes as it affects the most innocent persons - those who have never had the opportunity to decide about war or peace.
 
We, members of the organizations listed above have the following demands:
  1. We want all the camps on the territory of the former Yugoslavia to be closed immediately, first of all those ones where women are exposed to sexual abuse, psychical torture and humiliation.
  2. We want rape to be treated as the crime of war. Therefore we demand the changing of the 3rd part of the 4th Geneva Convention from 1949. We ask European governments to pass the law which grants the political asylum to women who are the victims of sexual violence.
  3. We appeal to all women's organizations - international ones, governmental ones and non-governmental ones, to peace groups and women's groups to establish independent women's teams as soon as possible, to help in organizing the rape crisis centres offering support and all other kinds of help to the women who are the victims. We demand from the governmental authorities on these territories to give support to such initiatives according to all the international conventions.
Soldiers, army volunteers, professional soldiers, guards in camps and neighbours impose violence on women. The women of all nationalities are the victims of sexual abuse. In every war, rape is committed by soldiers of all the parties involved. The information, going around at present, says that Serbian military and paramilitary forces on the occupied territories of Bosnia have women's camps in which rape and violence against women are the regular practice. This is only the top of the iceberg of the violence which goes on in the peace as well.
 
That is why we, women from the organizations listed above, ask the world, world's governments, governments and regimes of the parties involved in the war on the territories of the former Yugoslavia, to pay their full attention to this problem and to our demands.
 
AT THE SAME TIME, WE OPPOSE STRONGLY TO ANY KIND OF MANIPULATION WITH VICTIMS, UNCHECKED STATEMENTS, NUMBERS OF VICTIMS, UNCHECKED INFORMATION, AS WELL AS TO USING THE WOMEN WHO ARE THE VICTIMS OF RAPE FOR THE PURPOSE OF SPREADING HATE, NATIONAL INTOLERANCE AND WAR PROPAGANDA.
 
Women's Lobby

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These pages are dedicated to women’s memories of resistance to war and nationalisms in the countries of former Yugoslavia, but also to the activities of all women in the world who, in the context of transitional processes, raise their voice against war violence and discrimination.