Helga in Kosovo

Hello!

Greetings from the Albanian bride (this is what many people keep calling me after they heard I have an Albanian boyfriend)! 😀 Anyhow, a new week has started. The whole weekend was quite cold and today it was raining when I came to Gjakova by bus. There was a lot of work this weekend, but all in all last week was good. Especially on Thursday evening while millions of people were watching the World Cup opening ceremony, I took part in an event in Prishtina. My boss Mirlinda Kusari Purrini from SHE-ERA (the organization where I’m doing my internship at) asked me to join her to the National council for the survivors of sexual violence during the war. The motto of the council is ´Time to act’. There were some very prestigious people involved in the evening; for example the Minister of European integration Mrs. Vlora Çitaku, The ambassador of United Kingdom Mr. Ian Cliff, The President of Kosovo Mrs. Atifete Jahjaga, The British Foreign Secretary Mr. William Hague and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Mrs. Angelina Jolie. The last three people were in London in the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, so they had made a video message for us in Kosovo. On Friday I went to another smaller event which was a continuation of Thursday evening.

After Thursday’s event it took a while for me to fall asleep, because of all the stories about women and children being sexually abused really made my thoughts spin. I think the Dutch military officer Patrick Cammaert has a good point when he once said:” It is now more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in modern conflict”

This year it is exactly 15 years since the war ended here. It is such a short time and on Thursday I really got the feeling that it has been a super short time since it happened. During the event we got to watch a documentary that was about the women and children who suffered from sexual violence during the war. Many of the participants in the event either could not watch some parts of the documentary or they were crying. It felt so surreal to see it with my own eyes. Before, when I have heard about such stories it has been horrible of course, but on Thursday when I saw these people cry, it actually hit me, and it hit me hard. I felt like crying a couple of times too. And the craziest thing is that these things have happened throughout the history, and still today it happens in many parts of the world. Think how many people are suffering, not only during the time they are being sexually abused, but for the rest of their lives? As one of the interviewees said in the documentary: “when you die, you die once, but when you are being raped it is like dying every day”.

Many of these women or children who were sexually abused have been so humiliated that even after the war they have never had the courage to step up. Many are so traumatized that they are not able to speak about their experiences. Even when NGOs (non-governmental organization) are trying to help, these women do not have the courage to speak with them. After the war only a few women spoke about the sexual abuse they had gone through. However, after time more women got the courage to speak and many more are expected to open up.

They say that about 20 000 women, only in Kosovo, have been sexually abused. Nobody really knows the real numbers since many don’t speak about it and others may have died either during or after the war. Another big problem is that these sexual victims have not got much help. For example, there has not been a law in Kosovo that has convicted these criminals for sexual abuse. In 2013 the Government of Kosovo has worked on a law, but so far, if I understood right, only a few has been convicted.

The documentary we saw on Thursday had some horrible stories about some of the victims. One of the interviewees told about a twelve year old girl who had been a sexual slave of 4 serbs for 4 months. After she had been released she had not been speaking with anyone, including her mother. The organization that helped this girl have been using music as a tool to cure some of the patients. They had given the girl a tambourine. They gave her a tambouring because they knew that while this girl had been a hostage she had had a tambourine which had helped her a bit. She had started to play it and while she was playing she was crying, for hours. After some time the girl had started to speak to the caretakers and they were able to help her. But once she went back to her hometown she couldn’t stay there, because people knew her story and wouldn’t let her be. She was so humiliated and had to move somewhere else. And this is a quite familiar story among many other women. They feel humiliated even though it was never their fault; they were victims of organized crime. Another horrible weapon in war. Some women had also got pregnant, and because they did not want to give birth to the enemy’s child, many committed suicide instead.

Sexual violence in conflicts is a global problem, not only local. It has been a taboo for long, and it is so important that people discuss about it. Kosovo is not the only place where it has happened. For example in Sudan, Bosnia and at the moment in Ukraine these horrors are taking place. I have to say that I am so thankful to have never had to be afraid of my own life the way many of the people in Kosovo has. I know what it feels like to lose a close person, and I know it is impossible to forget about that person. But I can’t even start to imagine what it must feel like being a victim of such cruelty as sexual abuse.