Prison sentences from three months to fifteen years. Criminal laws, laws on gender equality, Istanbul Convention. Despite all the legal frameworks and prescribed punishments, one in four women still faces some form of violence.
In Montenegro, for example, although the maximum prison sentence is 15 years, the average sentence for rape is four years and three months. In Serbia, 2019 people were sentenced to prison terms for rape in 25.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, where, according to United Nations data, over 20.000 women were raped during the war, only about 160 perpetrators have been convicted so far. And in most countries, force, not consent, is the focus of the crime of rape.
Since January 2021, actresses from Serbia who reported rape and their confessions in the media started a chain of anonymous confessions of women on social networks - they described the traumas they went through, but also why they decided not to report what happened to them to the police.
This issue came into the public spotlight again on March 22, after actress Danijela Steinfeld accused actor, opposition politician and former Minister of Culture Branislav Lečić of rape. The investigation is ongoing.
'If he wants, that's it'
Outdated and imprecise definitions of rape continue to be applied throughout Europe when making judgments in cases of sexual violence. According to UN Woman, rape culture has different forms and goes much further than the idea that "a man will attack a woman while she is walking alone at night". Equally, not every crime of rape is followed by violence, because it often happens that the rapists are someone the victim knows, and they "freeze" from shock and fear.
A 2019 OSCE survey involving women from Bosnia and Herzegovina states that two-thirds of women believe that violence against women is common in Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to the data of the same research, sexual violence is considered a serious issue and respondents believe that sex is still considered a marital obligation of a couple. “If I'm married and I don't want to have sex, it doesn't matter. If he wants, that's it," said one of the survey respondents.
Sex without consent is rape and European laws must reflect that, wrote last year the general secretary of the Council of Europe, Marija Pejčinović Burić, who called on member countries to change the definition of rape.
In an article published in the EU Observer, she wrote that not enough member states take the crime of rape seriously because their legal definitions are not based on a lack of consent. "This puts the onus on those who are raped, most often women, to be the victims."
In its research, Amnesty International also states that 12 out of 31 European countries now have laws that define rape as a lack of consent. There was an improvement compared to their 2018 report when the vast majority of countries, including Croatia, defined rape with a focus on force.
Montenegro and Kosovo specifically mention coercion without the person's consent in their criminal laws. For Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, rape is still defined in terms of threats and force.
There are four criminal laws in force in Bosnia and Herzegovina, depending on where you live: Federation of BiH, Republika Srpska, Brčko District plus the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which characterizes rape through two articles, a crime against humanity and a war crime against the civilian population. Prison sentences range from three months to 15 years.
For example, the Criminal Code of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina considers rape "whoever uses force or threatens to attack another person's life or body directly, or a sexual act equivalent to it, shall be punished by a prison sentence of one to ten years".
The details of the crime of rape further state the range of punishment depending on the injuries, the age of the victim and the consequences.
If the criminal offense was committed in a particularly cruel manner, if it was repeated or if there were several perpetrators, the sentence can be from three to 15 years. All other items of the part of the law related to sexual freedom and morality are characterized as "sexual intercourse".
Thus, taking advantage of a weak person for sexual intercourse is punished with one to eight years, abuse of one's position in order to induce sexual intercourse is punished with three months to three years. Coercion of sexual intercourse by a serious threat of "some grave evil" will be punishable by three months to five years in prison. None of these items indicate consent, nor are they further characterized as rape.
There are similar provisions in Serbia. For rape, a prison sentence of two to 12 years is provided, if it is "compulsion to rape by the use of force or the threat to attack the life or body" of the victim or a person close to her.
A lighter sentence is provided if the rape was committed under the threat of revealing something that would harm the reputation or honor of the victim or a person close to her "or under the threat of some other serious evil".
On the other hand, the Criminal Code of Kosovo states that "whoever forces another to commit sexual acts without the consent of that person shall be punished by imprisonment for a term of two to ten years." The law of Montenegro states similarly.
The idea of "boys will be boys" or "boys will remain boys" is not only a song by Dua Lipa, although it talks about sexual harassment and violence, but also an idea in which we should not be surprised when men are rude and violent because it is part of their character .
"But what about cases where there is no physical violence? What about the cases when the victim simply freezes, paralyzes, not because of violence, but because of fear or because the person raping them is a friend or partner?" asks Amnesty.
At the same time, they state that the data on the number of raped women in the countries of the European Union is astonishing. One in twenty women is raped after the age of 15. That's about nine million women.
The inclusion of the consent factor in the legal framework is also foreseen by the Istanbul Convention. The Istanbul Convention is an international agreement of the Council of Europe on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. The goal of the Convention is zero tolerance for violence. All Western Balkan countries have adopted the principles of this Convention.
Turkey, the country whose city and place of signing the 2011 convention is named after, made an unprecedented move on March 20 of this year. It was then announced that the country's conservative president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, had canceled Turkey's ratification of the Convention.
Small fines and even smaller sentences
For rape in Montenegro, a prison sentence of one to 15 years is prescribed. However, according to Aida Muzurović from the High Court in Podgorica, in the last five years, 18 court proceedings have been conducted for the aforementioned criminal offense, and the average sentence was four years and three months in prison.
In 2019, 73 criminal charges were filed for rape in Serbia. In 69 cases, the perpetrators were known, and in four cases, the perpetrators were unknown. 15 criminal charges were dismissed, the investigation was suspended in six cases, and indictments were filed in 48 cases.
Of the twenty-five people convicted of rape in 2019, in 11 cases the prison sentence was between five and ten years.
From 2018 to 2020, 36 cases of rape were reported in Republika Srpska, of which the courts confirmed only 12 indictments, according to Transparency International data.
In the last six years, 225 cases of sexual violence were recorded in Kosovo. Only last year there were 58 cases.
The Kosovo Women's Network states that the largest number of victims of sexual violence are girls aged 13-16.
During 2019, 58 cases of sexual violence were resolved in Kosovo, of which 12 resulted in prison sentences, three with fines, while the other cases were dismissed or acquitted.
In addition to this, Kosovo also adopted a law in 2014 that refers to victims of war rape, on the basis of which slightly more than 1.000 people received a status that entitles them to a pension of 230 euros.
It is believed that during the war in Kosovo, about 20 thousand people were sexually abused. So far, not a single judgment has become final. Vasfije Krasniqi-Goodman, a victim of sexual violence during the war, is the first woman in Kosovo to speak publicly about it. She was elected as a member of the Assembly of Kosovo in mid-March. She says her priority will be justice and the protection of war victims in Kosovo.
Why is rape not reported?
"My mother hid the truth from me for 15 years because she was afraid of my reaction because she lived in a judgmental society for the past 15 years. And her logical first thought was if all these people were judging me and my Ajna grew up among those people, will my Ajna judge me?," says Ajna Jusić, born in 1993 as a rape victim of her mother during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Today, she is the president of the association 'Forgotten Children of War', an activist who fights for gender equality and against sexism and sexual violence.
Out of 100 respondents who survived sexual violence in Montenegro, 88 of them did not report the violence to the institutions. This is shown by the data of the Study on sexual violence against women and children in Montenegro from last year. There are similar data in other countries of the Western Balkans.
Azra Berbić, an activist of the non-governmental organization "Oštra nula" from Bosnia and Herzegovina, says that victims of sexual violence, especially rape, generally do not report these crimes due to the lack of systemic and social support, as well as fear of condemnation from the environment.
"For example, we have a case in which the defense lawyer in court, during the testimony of a girl who was a rape victim, asked if she had fingernails, and if she did, why didn't she defend herself. It only shows to what extent the system itself allows prejudices and stereotypes that women are always responsible and guilty for rape. This is exactly why the victims remain silent," Berbić believes.
And for psychologist Sandra Muratović, the reaction of the environment is one of the most important factors that make women not report the violence they experience.
"If even a victim reports violence and because of the administration, an absurd chain of transfer of responsibility from institution to institution, he does not get a result, he does not satisfy any justice. If I know about such testimonies, I will certainly not report my own experience", she explains.
However, there are many reasons why women do not decide to report violence or wait for years.
"Trauma has its stages. As much as we would like to know the stages, it is all specific to each of us individually. After the act itself, the engagement phase takes place. It's a defensive act and we all have it because we can't accept what happened, so we sweep it under the rug. This is how we protect ourselves and it should not be misinterpreted as saying that I do not want to report the abuser. I'm simply protecting myself, it takes time to accept the things we've been through," says Muratović.
Who to contact?
The first institution that victims turn to is usually the police.
"The one who takes that first statement should be specialized in the topic of sexual violence, to know what all must be taken in the first statement, so that it could serve the prosecution and if the crime actually happened, how to provide forensic evidence." They must be appropriate, complete and complete, because if they are not taken then - it's over, the trace disappears", explains Tanja Ignjatović, a psychologist from the Autonomous Women's Center in Serbia.
Emergency calls in Serbia can be reported to the police at number 192, and reports of domestic violence can be made at 0800-100-600.
The SOS telephone number against violence against women of the Autonomous Women's Center is 011/266-2222 (working days from 10 a.m. to 20 p.m.), and the SOS telephone number against trafficking in women of the ATSRA organization is 011/785-0000 (working days from 09 a.m. to 17 p.m.).
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, there are SOS telephones in both entities.
The Gender Center of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina established the SOS telephone number 1265 to help victims of domestic violence in the territory of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
SOS line 1264 for the territory of Republika Srpska was established in 2005 by four non-governmental organizations and the Gender Center of Republika Srpska.
Victims of domestic violence, including sexual violence, in Montenegro can contact several telephone numbers for help: Police Department - 122; National SOS line for victims of domestic violence – 080 111 111; Center for Women's Rights - 067 166 800; SOS telephone for women and children victims of violence PG – 020 232 254; 067 805 297; Safe Women's House - 069 013 321 and Center for Roma Initiatives - 067 104 700.
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