Atifete Jahjaga was head of state of the Republic of Kosovo from 2011 to 2016 and the nation’s preliminary girls president. After taking a laws degree on the University of Pristina, she targeted on prison regulation. After completion of the Kosovo War in 1999, she held quite a few placements within the not too long ago developed Kosovar Police and was assigned the stress’s alternative supervisor in 2009. During her time as head of state, the politically impartial Jahjaga defended larger civil liberties and equal rights for women and girls inKosovo Through the Jahjaga Foundation, which was established in 2018, she features, to call just a few factors, for the survivors of sex-related bodily violence all through the Kosovo War and for interethnic dialogue within the Western Balkan space.
DW: President Jahjaga, there are worth quotes that round 20,000 girls have been raped all through the Kosovo War You have been straight related to elevating understanding of this concern all through your presidency. How was this proof collected and precisely how exact are these numbers?
Atifete Jahjaga: When we talk about sex-related bodily violence all through the battle in Kosovo, it has truly been and stays to be an open damage and a forbidden subject for our state and residents.
In the 25 years on condition that the battle completed, I’ve truly functioned proactively on this subject, particularly all through my time period as head of state of Kosovo and in a while as earlier head of state, and presently with the Jahjaga Foundation.
The information we describe are based mostly upon a method made use of not simply in Kosovo but moreover in Bosnia, Rwanda andMyanmar It is a sure components for approximating numbers. We have conditions that have been reported by worldwide firms on the time these acts have been devoted.
The p.c is extraordinarily excessive, with the quantity being round 20,000 girls. But it hadn’t been merely girls; round 1,000 guys have been additionally raped.
There are conditions the place the victims themselves reported the rape to the businesses that acquired evacuees after they more than likely to evacuee camps in bordering nations.
We have information from the International Red Cross and several other varied different firms. Then there may be the number of abortions that occurred in evacuee camps, along with information after the liberty of Kosovo.
There are quite a few methods of attending to the approximate number of 20,000. To day we’ve got truly not had a complete document from any form of firm on the particular quantity.
During my participation on this matter alone, I’ve truly met over 8,000 girls and guys that have been raped all through the battle. The most important subject is that an excessive amount of girls and guys have truly nonetheless not taken the motion of chatting actually with their members of the family or any individual else.
DW: As you state, not practically sufficient focus has truly been paid to the priority of conflict time sex-related bodily violence in Kosovar tradition. It nonetheless seems to be a forbidden topic inside Kosovar members of the family. Why is that?
Yahyaga: It’s a mixture of a number of parts.
Firstly, it has slightly bit to do with the patriarchal mind-set of our tradition. In 2011, after I began to speak brazenly regarding this topic– supporting for institutional participation and resolving this concern, which was not a constitutional obligation of the pinnacle of state but an moral duty– I acquired quite a few responses, from one excessive to the assorted others .
Some claimed Kosovo and its people weren’t all set to debate this subject. They acknowledged that it had truly taken place but firmly insisted that this section was shut. My motion on the time was, “How can you close a chapter that has never been opened?”
A implausible oppression was finished shortly after the battle once we dealt with all these institutional and social tasks within the course of each war-related group, but marginalized the survivors of sex-related bodily violence, implying them, by no means ever understanding that their our bodies had truly grow to be battlefields. While we have been opening up tombs for the lacking out on and establishing monoliths for loads of saints, we by no means ever acknowledged the discomfort and the consequences encountered by survivors of sex-related bodily violence.
At the second, there was an effort to stop us, declaring that Kosovar tradition was not all set to overview this concern. However, after the advocacy of my office and group, along with the substantial initiatives of civil tradition, I used to be urged to react to the political elites of the second, specifying that people had truly continuously ready to problem this topic– it was merely that appropriate administration had truly been doing not should actually cope with the unhealed accidents of our tradition.
The extremes have been extraordinarily precise. On the one hand, some family members immediately introduced survivors to firms, stating, “You need to help our family members.” On the assorted others, there was the uncomfortable excessive the place girls and girls have been required to keep up their trick to themselves and inside their members of the family for safeguarding “morality.”
But the embarassment was by no means ever theirs. It was the embarassment of those that devoted these wrongs. The blame shouldn’t be routed to the survivors, but to the wrongdoers, that made use of rape as a device of battle versus the residents of Kosovo.
DW: What have justice institutions finished to carry charges versus the wrongdoers? Many non-governmental firms have truly regularly elevated their voices, specifying that the nation has truly not finished something hereof. You operate as head of state for one time period. How official are these issues?
Yahyaga: So a lot, if I’m not incorrect, we’ve got truly had simply 9 or 10 conditions, fees ready by the prosecution and police institutions, whereas there is only one scenario the place a choice has truly been made, and the sentencing will increase a number of considerations.
It hurts that a whole lot of conditions have been developed by UNMIK and EULEX, and these conditions have been moved to the arms of neighborhood institutions but have been by no means ever handled as totally different conditions, simply as element of the fundamental conditions linked to battle prison actions. Thus, immunity has truly triggered the survivors of sex-related bodily violence to shed rely on the institutions of justice.
Edited by: Aingeal Flanagan
