WUNRN
Official Film Video Segment:
Global Fund for Women
http://www.globalfundforwomen.org/impact/media-center/news-releases/163-2011/1975-film-confronts-war-rape-trauma
January 11, 2012
By Violeta Krasnić, Program
Director for Europe and
In theaters now, “In the Land of Blood and Honey” is
set against the backdrop of the Bosnian war that killed 100,000 and displaced half
of country’s four million people in the early 1990s. The film tells the story
of two Bosnians from different sides of a brutal ethnic conflict, bringing into
focus the use of rape as a weapon of war.
While war rape has been recorded throughout the history, it was the
Bosnian war that opened the eyes of the world to the scale of sexual violence
crimes inflicted on women because of their gender.
Like the main character, Ajla, an artist and a Muslim, women of
Underreported even in peacetime, and notorious for being the cheapest
war weapon, rape was used to tear families and communities apart. It is because
of the courage and resilience of women survivors who came forward to testify
that the international civil society campaigned for the recognition and
prosecution of war rape under international law. As a result, the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) became the first tribunal
ever to prosecute war rape as an independent crime against humanity.
Nevertheless, nearly 20 years later, justice is yet to be achieved for
many women living in
Further, as women’s organizations have documented, the continuum of
violence and discrimination against women the years of war and military
conflict have proven that violence against women precedes wars, escalates
during, and increases in the aftermath of such conflicts. When state
institutions falter in efforts to provide for safety, human security, and
justice, civil society and women’s organizations, many of them Global Fund for
Women grantees, step in to provide needed services and political platform.
Global Fund has been grantmaking in the countries of former
Recently launched Women’s Court for the Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia
is an example of groundbreaking effort in achieving gender justice,
accountability, and peace. A network of seven women’s groups from four
countries, Women’s Court intends to establish a new, alternative, and safe
political space for women’s vision of justice in communities to become reality.
·
Read
how women around the world are confronting war and militarism »
·
Browse
the Women, War & Peace website for interviews and resources about
the region's history »
·
Read Amnesty International's report on justice not yet
served for women raped during the war »
·
Watch
videos about the making of "In the Land of Blood and Honey" »
·
Read
about the United Nation's resolution that identifies rape as a tactic of war »