Human Rights Action (HRA) has called for better protection for victims of wartime sexual violence.
They indicate that today is the International Day of Combating Sexual Violence in War, with the aim of ending impunity for these crimes, providing timely assistance and adequate health care to victims of sexual violence, and promoting their rehabilitation and de-stigmatization.
"During the wartime nineties in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, the scale of sexual violence received the epithet of 'mass rape'. It is estimated that from 1991 to 1993 there were already over 20.000 victims of wartime sexual violence. Before the Hague Tribunal, for crimes of sexual violence against women , men and children, 78 people or 48% of all accused were charged before that tribunal. By the end of September 2016, 32 people were convicted for these crimes, and four more because they did not prevent the crime and punished the perpetrator practice advanced the development of international justice in the field of gender crimes, creating the possibility that rape can be prosecuted as torture (Camp Celebic), crime against humanity (Foca) and genocide (Krstic). In the 'Foča' case, for the first time, sexual slavery was qualified as a crime against humanity," HRA reminds in a statement.
As they state, since 1996 and the first indictment before the Hague Tribunal for sexual abuse, there are indications that citizens of Montenegro participated in rapes in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina.
"At that time, Muslim women, children and elderly people were detained in houses, apartments and motels in Foča and the surrounding villages, as well as in facilities for short or long detention such as Buk Bijela, Vilina Vlasi, the gymnasium in Foča and the sports hall 'Partizan'. Several women were also kept in houses and apartments, which were run as brothels. Due to the lack of self-initiative approach and the lack of prosecutorial and political will to prosecute cases of war crimes in Montenegro, the investigation of wartime sexual violence began only four years ago, when the International Residual Mechanism submitted to the SDT a file with over 15 Montenegrin citizens, who are suspected of having participated in war crimes, including sexual violence, rape, torture, forced prostitution and human trafficking for sexual exploitation in the area of Foča investigations in this case are expected in the next two to three years," HRA adds.
They also remind that the only active court case of war crimes in Montenegro is being conducted against the Montenegrin citizen Slobodan Peković.
"This is the first case that includes accusations of sexual violence. Action for Human Rights emphasizes the strategic importance of this case because for the first time the victim has the status of a protected witness. In this sense, in addition to protective guarantees in the form of testimony under a pseudonym and via video link, with blurred vision and altered voice, the court would have to take into account the awarding of the property claim to the victims in the case of a conviction. In this way, their re-traumatization in the civil proceedings, as well as the disclosure of their identity, would be prevented Peković, such a request was made," says HRA.
They called on the Ministry of Justice to speed up the process of adapting the new premises of the Special State Prosecutor's Office, in which victims of war crimes will be provided with an additional degree of protection from secondary victimization, through special entrances and waiting rooms for victims and special hearing rooms.
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