Atifete Jahjaga was head of state of the Republic of Kosovo from 2011 to 2016 and the nation’s preliminary ladies president. After taking a laws stage 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 strain’s alternative supervisor in 2009. During her time as head of state, the politically impartial Jahjaga defended greater civil liberties and equal rights for girls and girls inKosovo Through the Jahjaga Foundation, which was established in 2018, she capabilities, 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 focus on sex-related bodily violence all through the battle in Kosovo, it has really 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 really 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 at present with the Jahjaga Foundation.
The knowledge we describe are primarily based upon a method made use of not simply in Kosovo but moreover in Bosnia, Rwanda andMyanmar It is a sure system for approximating numbers. We have conditions that have been reported by worldwide corporations 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 once they most probably to evacuee camps in bordering nations.
We have knowledge from the International Red Cross and a number of other numerous different corporations. Then there may be the number of abortions that occurred in evacuee camps, along with data after the liberty of Kosovo.
There are quite a few strategies of attending to the approximate number of 20,000. To day now we have really not had a complete document from any type of firm on the precise quantity.
During my participation on this matter alone, I’ve really met over 8,000 girls and guys that have been raped all through the battle. The most vital challenge is that a substantial amount of girls and guys have really nonetheless not taken the motion of chatting actually with their members of the family or any particular person else.
DW: As you state, not almost sufficient focus has really been paid to the priority of struggle 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 overtly regarding this topic– supporting for institutional participation and resolving this concern, which was not a constitutional obligation of the top of state but an moral duty– I acquired quite a few responses, from one excessive to the varied others .
Some claimed Kosovo and its people weren’t all set to debate this subject. They acknowledged that it had really taken place but firmly insisted that this part was shut. My motion on the time was, “How can you close a chapter that has never been opened?”
A incredible oppression was carried out shortly after the battle after we dealt with all these institutional and social duties within the path 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 really turn out to be battlefields. While we have been opening up tombs for the lacking out on and organising 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 really always ready to problem this topic– it was merely that appropriate administration had really been doing not need to actually cope with the unhealed accidents of our tradition.
The extremes have been extraordinarily precise. On the one hand, some kin immediately introduced survivors to corporations, stating, “You need to help our family members.” On the varied 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 instrument of battle versus the residents of Kosovo.
DW: What have justice institutions carried out to carry charges versus the wrongdoers? Many non-governmental corporations have really regularly elevated their voices, specifying that the nation has really not carried out something hereof. You perform as head of state for one time period. How reliable are these issues?
Yahyaga: So a lot, if I’m not incorrect, now we have really had simply 9 or 10 conditions, costs ready by the prosecution and police institutions, whereas there is only one scenario the place a choice has really 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 fingers of neighborhood institutions but have been by no means ever handled as totally different conditions, simply as part of the essential conditions linked to battle prison actions. Thus, immunity has really triggered the survivors of sex-related bodily violence to shed rely on the institutions of justice.
Edited by: Aingeal Flanagan
