WUNRN
WOMEN’S
COURT - FEMINIST APROACH TO JUSTICE
Through
Women's Court, Women Become the Proponents of Justice. They Initiate the Introduction
of
Different Judicial Practices and Exert an Influence
on the Institutional Legal System.
Women's
Court Regional Organisational Board
Bosnia
& Herzegovina:
Mothers of the Enclaves of Srebrenica and Zepa
Women’s Forum (www.forumzena.org)
Foundation CURE (www.fondacijacure.org)
Croatia:
Centre for Women’s Studies (www.zenstud.hr)
Centre for Women War Victims - ROSA (www.czzzr.hr)
Kosovo:
Kosovo Women’s Network (www.womensnetwork.org)
Macedonia:
National Council for Gender Equality (www.sozm.org.mk)
Montenegro:
Anima (www.animakotor.org)
Slovenia:
Women’s Lobby Slovenia (www.zls.si)
Serbia:
Women’s Studies (www.zenskestudie.edu.rs)
Women in Black (www.zeneucrnom.org)
ABOUT THE WOMEN'S COURT
What is the Women’s Court?
· A space for the
women’s voices and for their testimonies of the injustices they have
experienced during the war and the peace time;
· A
space for the women’s testimonies of violence, in both private and public
sphere;
· A
space for the testimonies of the organized women’s resistance.
When did the process of
organizing Women’s Court – Feminist Approach to
Justice start?
At the end of 2010, 7 members of the
Initiative Board (IB), from almost all countries of the former Yugoslavia,
started the initiative for the organizing of the Women’s Court. IB now includes
members from 10 organizations, from all former Yugoslavia countries.
In the last two years, Women in Black was the organization that led the
implementation of program activities.
What did we do so far?
In last two years of field work, we
organized/produced:
· 11 regional seminars,
· 10
trainings for the public presentations,
· 102 public presentations, in 83 towns
in the region,
· 25 documentaries about this topic,
· 15 meetings (working consultative meetings
of IB members, the meeting of the members of The International Consultative
Board)
· 5 regional feminist discussion circles, to
deepen our knowledge about the topic,
· 10 publications (brochures, readers, peace
agendas), and numerous leaflets in all the languages of the region (Albanian,
BCMS, Macedonian, and Slovenian)
What is the time scope
the Court deals with?
· The
Women’s Court will deal with the violence committed during the 1990ies,
· The
Women’s Court will deal with the violence committed after the wars in the
1990ies,
The conclusion is that there is a
continuity of the injustice and the violence, which connects the war and the
post war period.
What sorts of violence
the Court deals with?
I - Ethnically based
violence:
§ Institutional violence - harassment by
the border police, on the basis of ethnicity; expulsion from work because of minority
ethnic background; forced identity changes based on ethnically motivated hate;
expulsion from houses, etc.
§ Repression of the society - the
rejection and the harassment off ethnically mixed
families/marriages/communities, etc.
§ The harassment by the border police on
the basis of ethnicity; expulsion from work for belonging to the minority
ethnic group; forced identity changing because of the ethnicity; expulsion from
their homes, etc.
II - Militaristic
violence:
- The war against civilians - warfare, constant Physical threat,
siege, hunger exhaustion for trying, bombing, militaristic terror at the
border, etc. • The war against civilians - military operations, constant
physical threat, siege, hunger extortion, bombings, militaristic terror at the
border ...
- Repression because of the resistance to the forced mobilization
- against women who supported deserters - male relatives, as well as against
anti-war activists, who supported deserters and conscientious objectors ...
III – The continuity of
gender-based violence:
· War
crimes of rape - concealing war crimes of rape, abuse of rape for nationalistic
purposes, stigmatization of women who testify about it, etc.
· Male
violence against women - physical, psychological and sexual violence in marriage
and intimate relationships, committed by men who returned from the battlefield,
but also the normalization of male violence against women in the public sphere
(in the media, school textbooks) as a socially acceptable form of behavior…
· Political
repression of Women Human rights Defenders.
IV Economic Violence
against Women:
· Privatization
as crime against women – – deprivation of labor and socio-economic rights;
· Living
in a constant economic crisis – deprivation, living in constant fear of poverty,
unemployment, dismissal from work without pay, etc.
The dilemmas and the
challenges that have emerged during the process:
a. The issue
of responsibility -
experience in the field has shown that the question of responsibility (moral,
political...) is not present at the general public, due
to:
§ Nationalism,
§ Transferring responsibility to the
"other" (primarily the another nation),
§ The denial and minimization of war
crimes committed "in our name "etc.
Women feel that it is an obstacle to a
just peace and that it is important to continue to address the issue of
responsibility/accountability from the feminist perspective.
b. Women’s
Tribunal or Women’s Court?
Related to this dilemma, women have concluded that:
§ The Women’s Tribunal is more associated with the institutional legal system (“proper court”),