On the occasion of June 19, the International Day of Combating Sexual Violence in Conflicts, Women in Black and the Autonomous Women's Center are organizing a protest in mourning and silence "We remember women raped in war", on June 19, 2024, from 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., on Republic Square in Belgrade.

The history of rape in war is as long as the history of war itself. His impunity is even longer. In the first international courts that tried war crimes and crimes against humanity, rape in war was not taken into account.

The International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia recognized sexual violence as a weapon of war and in its rulings qualified it as a war crime and a crime against humanity. The first verdict condemning sexual slavery in the case of the Fočan Troika in 2002 was passed within this court.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the recognition of the status of a civilian victim of war is regulated in three different ways - in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BHF), the Republika Srpska (RS), and the Brčko District. Women who survived war rape were recognized for the first time in the world as civilian victims of war in the Federation in 2006. As of last year, also for the first time in the world, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina recognizes children born as a result of wartime rape as civilian victims of war. In their legal framework, Croatia and Kosovo also recognize survivors of sexual violence in war as civilian victims of war who are entitled to various types of compensation, social and health services. More than 1,500 people have achieved this status in Kosovo, and more than 200 in Croatia.

Serbia is the only country in the region that still does not recognize women who survived sexual violence in war as civilian victims of war. That is why we ask the state to amend the current Law on the Rights of Veterans, War Disabled Persons, Civil War Disabled Persons and their Family Members, in order to explicitly recognize those who survived wartime sexual violence as civilian victims of war, regardless of their nationality.

In Belgrade, June 17, 2024

Women in Black

Autonomous Women’s Center