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Kosovo War - Traumatic Gang
Rapes -Many Women Keep Secret
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An estimated 20,000 women and girls were subjected to organized gang-rapes by Serbian and Yugoslav forces during the 16-month Kosovo War.
By Amra Zejneli – May 29, 2014
PRISTINA -- Jeta, a Kosovar Albanian from rural
The early autumn days of September 1998 were not much different. The men of her
village, including Jeta's husband and elder son, had departed en masse to hide
from Serbian and Yugoslav forces that had been fighting Kosovo Albanian rebels
since February. Serbian tanks had already entered the area, and many mothers
and children were leaving as well. But Jeta decided to stay at home, believing the
soldiers wouldn't harm defenseless women and children.
When she saw a tank full of Serbian soldiers pull in front of her house, she
realized her mistake.
"They jumped out of the tank into our yard," says Jeta, who asked
that her real name not be used. "There were five armed men. They came in
the house, one after another. And I remember them putting black masks over
their faces immediately.
"I told my daughters to come stand close to me. We gathered together, and
they ordered us to go into the basement of the house. And that's where the
tragedy took place. My youngest was 13," Jeta says through tears.
As her grandchildren and a disabled son hid from the soldiers upstairs, Jeta
and her three daughters were held captive in the basement, where they were beaten
and brutally raped for hours.
Jeta, who is now in her 50’s but looks far older, says she never lost
consciousness during the attack.
"I was aware of what was happening, but at some point I stopped
thinking," she says in a pained whisper. "I just waited to see what
would happen next. Were we going to die? Would we get up? Were they going to
kill us? I wasn't afraid of dying; I even wanted to die. My oldest daughter
asked to be killed. She was screaming, 'Kill us, don't let us live!'"
Jeta, her expression tired and hopeless, crosses her hands and puts them on top
of her head. She seems breathless and asks for water. "She's been
psychologically traumatized ever since. Another one of my daughters had her
left shoulder dislocated. I told my daughters to stay silent, to be quiet.... I
didn't know how to make their fear go away," she says.
'Deliberate' Campaign
Jeta and her daughters are among an estimated 20,000 women and girls who were
subjected to organized gang-rapes by Serbian and Yugoslav forces during the
16-month Kosovo War. Human Rights
Watch said the rapes -- carried out mainly by
paramilitary forces, often in view of the victims' families -- were "used
deliberately as an instrument to terrorize the civilian population."
(Kosovar militants were also accused of rape, although the number of such cases
is believed to be far lower.)
In Kosovo, as in Bosnia-Herzegovina -- where as many as 40,000 mainly Muslim
women were systematically raped by Bosnian Serb forces -- the object was
humiliation and social stigma. In the case of Jeta and her daughters, it
worked. When their attackers finally left at nightfall, a male relative came to
the house. When he heard what had happened, he ordered them to "bury"
the experience, saying the rapes were "a bigger tragedy than being
murdered."
Jeta acquiesced, afraid of bringing shame and isolation
on her family. She remained silent for 15 years, even as she has watched the
heavy toll it has taken on her family. Three of her daughters have left the
country. One got married, only to be rejected by her husband when he found out
about the rape. The fourth daughter, disabled since birth, remains at home.
Jeta herself has never told her husband about the rapes. Instead, she said she
and her daughters were briefly captured by Serbs, as a way of explaining the
anxiety and depression they've suffered ever since. Her husband says rape would
dishonor the family; during the war, he threatened more than once to torture
and abandon her if she were ever "touched" by a Serb.
"How can you talk to such a person about this?" asks Jeta, who admits
she told her husband she was traveling to Pristina for a doctor's appointment
rather than an interview with a reporter about her wartime ordeal. Only a tiny
handful of women -- possibly as few as five -- have ever spoken to the press
about their rapes. Even using a fake name, Jeta is understandably nervous.
"I would really prefer it if they had killed me, instead of letting me
survive," she adds. "We don't feel any pleasure in life. When your
husband doesn't know what happened to you, then you aren't able to express
yourself to him about anything, and you never feel good. Even if we're talking
about the most beautiful moments, you're in the worst position. And that's the
very worst thing that's happened to us."
Jeta and her family spent the rest of the war as refugees, forced from village
to village by the Serbs' ethnic-cleansing campaign and under threat from the
NATO bombing campaign aimed at driving Serbian forces out of the
Albanian-majority territory. Jeta said after the terror she and her daughters
had experienced, her ordinary fears melted away, and she often found herself
reaching out to help fellow refugees.
"I had lived through a real trauma, and I didn't want other women to
experience the same thing," she says. "I couldn't even scream
anymore. I felt no fear. I told them not to fear death. I just took the
attitude that we had to move forward and not look back."
Silence Continues
That attitude persisted long beyond the war's end in June 1999. Jeta was so
fearful that word about the rapes would get out that it was 2013 before she
finally sought help with the Rehabilitation Center for Torture
Victims, a nongovernmental organization based in
Pristina.
Even with help available, most Kosovar women have been reluctant to reach out.
The center says roughly 100 rape victims have come forward to ask for
counseling in services. Of those, nearly 80 percent continue, like Jeta, to
hide the secret from their husbands out of fear of abandonment or abuse.
Compounding the problem is the government, which has been slow to address the
issue of rape victims. It was only this March -- a full 15 years after the war
-- that the Kosovo parliament finally agreed to extend wartime reparation
benefits to victims of sexual violence.
The benefits include a monthly payment of $400 -- a significant sum for Jeta
and her family, who currently survive on just $150 a month, plus a small
pension for their invalid daughter. There's just one problem: to apply for the
support, Jeta would finally have to broach the subject of her rape with her
husband.
After hiding her secret for 15 years, she's not sure that's a step she
personally can take. But she hopes sharing her story may help persuade other
Kosovars to finally acknowledge this painful chapter from the past.
"I would do anything to see men talking openly to wives who have been
victimized by the enemy," she says. "If I don't get anything out of
this entire story, maybe someone else will. I may have lost a battle, but I
don’t want others to experience the same. We need support, support from the
state and support from society. When that happens, that's when we'll be at
peace."