Undercovered: Nearly 20 Years Later, Addressing Sexual Violence During Kosovo War

Undercovered is our daily feature bringing attention to women’s issues worldwide, which we feel deserve a larger audience.

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In the years since the Kosovo War of 1998-1999, many of the women who survived sexual violence in the conflict have been met with stigmatization and further violence and their ordeals have gone largely unaddressed, Christine Chung writes Thursday in Women & Girls Hub.

Change interviewed Siobhan Hobbs, gender specialist with the U.N. Women’s Project Office in Kosovo to discuss efforts to provide formal recognition and reparations for a “large number” of survivors of sexual violence during the conflict. “The exact number is unknown, because there was not a lot of documentation at the time,” she said.

“It’s fair to say that sexual violence has existed probably in every war to date, but it hasn’t been recognized,” Hobbs said. “The Balkan wars were the turning point, and particularly the conflict in Bosnia. In terms of designing reparations programs, it’s still in its infancy, globally speaking. Several countries have designed either specific or more general frameworks, in which survivors of sexual violence can receive benefits, but they’ve been implemented to various degrees, and then have had varying levels of success.”

You can read the complete interview at Women & Girls Hub

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Undercovered is a daily feature from Mediaite, bringing attention to stories about women’s rights that warrant more attention. Go through the Undercovered archives here. If you have an idea or a tip, please email us at Undercovered@mediaite.com

[Photo by Mika Rantanen, via Wikicommons. CC BY-SA 3.0]