"They have been ceaselessly killing, torturing and
raping
for a year and a
half already. They have banished more than three million lives. They
manipulate women.
Blackmail men. They spread hate, destruction and death; we are left
without words to
express our horror and anger. They have separated streets,
classrooms, families, cities.
They are drawing lines on mountains and corridors through the
countryside..... Fascist
leaders of Serbian politics threaten us with war in Kosovo, Macedonia
and Serbia.
Meanwhile they have stopped all electricity, water and telephone
systems in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. People die by the minute" (Women in Black 28
October 1992, 92).
"War in Kosovo is escalating. The civil population is
suffering more and
more. The number dead, wounded, refugees, kidnapped and expelled is
increasing day by
day" (Women in Black, 23 June 1998).
Introduction
Since 1991, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has been
torn apart. The
Serbian regime, headed by Slobodan Miloševic, has
instigated hatred, ethnic cleansing and war throughout all the former
republics and
provinces of Yugoslavia. Throughout this same time, feminists in Serbia
and Croatia have
worked on peace activism and solidarity among women. While all the
nationalist
leaders have engaged in words of hatred, and supported ethnically defined
national
identities and statuses, militarism and killing, the feminist
women’s groups have
founded anti-war and feminist movements.
This paper will describe the conditions and factors influencing
women’s lives
in Serbia, and the ways women have organized to resist state and
interpersonal violence
and assist one another. To resist nationalism, sexism, and war feminists
founded anti-war
organizations and crisis lines, counseling centers, and shelters for
women and children.
With activism and civil disobedience they have transformed women’s
desperation and
anger into action. In Belgrade, Serbia since 1990, feminists have created
the SOS
Telephone, Women’s Lobby, Women’s Parliament, Women in Black,
the Women’s
Studies Research and Communication Center; the Autonomous Women’s
Center Against
Sexual Violence, the Center for Girls, two Women’s Houses (shelters
for battered
women), a feminist publishing house, called "1994," the Incest
Trauma Center,
the Counseling Center for Women, two houses for single women refugees
from Krajina, called
"Lastavica," which means The Swallow, "Women on
Work," an organization
that supports women’s enterprise initiatives, "Out of the
Circle," a
organization that supports women with disabilities and their families,
and
"Bibija," the Roma Women’s Center.
Background
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was a multi-national
socialist state
in Central Europe made-up of six republics—Slovenia, Croatia,
Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Montenegro, Macedonia, and Serbia, and two autonomous provinces within
Serbia-Vojvodina
and Kosovo. Throughout the 1980s nationalism among the republics grew,
spurred on by the
fall of Communism in Eastern and Central Europe. In May/June 1991 Croatia
and Slovenia
declared their independence from Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav National Army,
led by Serbian
leader Slobodan Miloševic, resisted
these moves for
independence. In Slovenia, the fighting lasted 10 days before the
Yugoslav National Army
withdrew leaving Slovenia an independent nation. In Croatia, the war was
longer and
bloodier. In September, 1991, in an effort to stop the fighting,
the United Nations
imposed an arms embargo on all the former Yugoslav republics which gave
the Serbian
controlled Yugoslav National Army far greater military strength. Local
militant ethnic
groups and nationalists attempted to seize control of the land where
their populations
were concentrated. Possessing greater military force, Serbs seized the
land inhabited
predominantly, but in no way exclusively, by Serbs. In January 1992, a
peacekeeping plan,
enforced by United Nations troops was accepted.
In April 1992, just as Bosnia-Herzegovina declared its
independence from
Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav Army, along with Serb nationalists, launched the
war in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. Of all the republics in former Yugoslavia,
Bosnia-Herzegovina was the
most ethnically mixed. Although the conflicts have been driven on all
sides by
nationalism, it was the Serbs, who initiated "ethnic
cleansing," a term used to
describe the forceful removal or killing of civilian populations. The
efforts to create
nationally or ethnically pure territories have meant that the wars are
aimed primarily at
civilian populations. According to the United States Committee for
Refugees,
"In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the most extreme elements of the
nationalist Serb
community—aided and abetted by their patron in Serbia—have
chosen to wipe out,
liquidate, remove, rather than to live with, those who are somehow
‘different.’
Their methods are crude, but effective: artillery barrages of
civilian centers; forced
population movements, appropriation of property. Those who survive
and are not driven out
face imprisonment, rape and the forced separation from family.
....Nationalist Croat
forces and, to a lesser extent, troops of the mostly Muslim Bosnian
army have also
committed violent, heinous acts" (Winter 1993).
At the end of 1995, escalating ethnic cleansing, mass
killings and
the violation
of "safe areas" for refugees prompted the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization
(NATO) to launch air strikes against Bosnian Serbs. All parties
eventually negotiated an
agreement to end the war. The Dayton Peace Accord called for Bosnia to be
partitioned into
a Bosnian Serb republic and a Croat-Muslim federation.
After 1989, when the Yugoslav government revoked the autonomous
status of Kosovo,
the Serbian headed regime put into a place a system of apartheid against
the ethnic
Albanians, who make up ninety percent of the population. In autumn 1990,
the Albanian
language was banned and people could be jailed for two months for
speaking Albanian in
public. Workers in state institutions were required to sign a loyalty
oath to Serbia. The
majority of people refused and consequently was expelled from jobs. Many
ethnic Albanian
businesses were forced to close. In 1992 and 1993, ethnic Albanian
students were expelled
from schools. As a result, schooling systems were established by ethnic
Albanians in
private homes, cellars, and unheated buildings. From 1989 to 1998, the
system of apartheid
and human rights violations increased. In response, ethnic Albanians
developed parallel
institutions to meet their needs, such as schools, medical care, trade,
and finally, their
own army, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
As other wars in former Yugoslavia ended, the Serbian nationalist
regime turned
their attention back to Kosovo. The repression of the ethnic Albanians by
Serbian police
increased, generating further nationalist activities and organization
among the ethnic
Albanians. On 28 February 1998, Serbian controlled Yugoslav Army troops
and Serbian police
entered Kosovo to squash the Kosovo Liberation Army, harass ethnic
Albanians, and start
ethnic cleansing in this region
As in Croatia and Bosnia, the targets of Serbian paramilitary and
military forces
were often civilian populations. According to the Kosovo Information
Center, from 28
February to July 1998, 266,729 ethnic Albanians were forced out of their
homes and 269
villages attacked by heavy artillery (Mladjenovic July 1998;
Belgrade Feminists 27 July 1998).
"Killing of Albanian people and looting of
Albanian villages is
permanent and increasing. People are attacked in forests, while their
villages are burned
to the ground. They have no way out. The border with Montenegro is
blocked, the border
with Albania is mined, and few go to Macedonia and some go to Bosnia
and Herzegovina. Most
of Albanian women, children and men are hungry, exhausted, sick,
homeless, desperate,
terrorized, trapped, blackmailed, humiliated, if they survive. Around
130,000 are without
any roof, in the open, and the cold weather is here" (Mladjenovic
September 1998).
During the summer of 1998, 350,000 ethnic Albanian people, mostly
women, children
and elderly people were expelled from their homes. The KLA reciprocated
by targeting
Serbian policemen and police stations, and kidnapping ethnic Serbs.
Nationalism in
Serbia
In Serbia the Communist leadership did not want to loose power
through
democratization, so they used ethnic nationalism to manipulate people and
create a popular
base for their continuing control. They succeeded in pulling Serbs toward
Serbia and
pushing others toward their own nationalist groups, who then chose
independence to escape
growing Serbian nationalism (Denitch 1994, 184). Largely through mass
rallies and state
controlled media people were taught to hate those who were different.
"It all began with ‘sweet’ stories about national
states, national
rights, life within ethnic boundaries" (The Women’s Parliament
20 May 1992, 48).
Nationalism was constructed on a highly imagined community inhabited by
people whose
identities that had little to do with accurate history, geography or real
attributes
(Denitch 1994, 187). Over several years, old unresolved ethnic and
national conflicts were
given new life. Specials were shown on TV about Serbian history that
recounted the
victimization of Serbs. For example, the Serbian popular press retold
stories of Croatian
war crimes against Serbs during World War II (Denitch 1994, 176). As
tales of the Serbian
defeats and victimizations were rejuvenated with new emotion, all
"others"
became potential threats to Serbia-ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, Slovenes
in Slovenia,
Croats and Muslims in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
At the beginning of the wars in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia,
there were all day
media programs against the "enemy," whose identity changed as
the war moved
eastward (from Slovenia, to Croatia, to Bosnia, to Kosovo). Every night
before and after
the TV news there were extra segments of pictures of dead or tortured
people with an
accompanying commentary on "what the enemy has done to innocent
Serbs." As
nurtured animosities grew, opportunists exploited the
conditions.
"The specter of nationalism was thus awakened.
Profiteers, gangsters and
murderers grabbed the opportunities offered by it. A state of general
uncertainty,
endangerment and mistrust was created. Paranoia has become our
everyday reality"(The
Women’s Parliament 20 May 1992).
A "cleansing" of the culture initiated by Serb
officials
removed books,
films, and works of art created by those who were not Serbs. Singers,
artists and actors
who were not Serbs were banned, harassed, and finally, most of them left
the country.
Textbooks were rewritten to include the nationalist view of history.
Beginning in Fall 1991 textbooks for elementary and secondary
school in the
Republic of Serbia had to include a "detailed account of wars,
exterminations,
tortures, destructions of people" (Imširovic and
Cetkovic 1991, 18). The ideology of "brotherhood and
unity," used for 45
years to hold Yugoslavia together under Communism, disappeared. Some
people with non-Serb
names removed their nameplates from their doors. Many people had to
conform to nationalist
ideology in order to keep their jobs and live in the community.
Nationalism, Motherhood and
Women’s
Reproductive Rights in Serbia
The nationalist ideology of the Serbian leaders calls for
women to
do their duty
to the country by having more babies and willingly sacrificing their
sons. Mythic figures
are called upon to coerce women into supporting nationalist goals, while
the law makers
are changing the constitution and laws, so that women will have no choice
but to comply.
"In tandem with the cult of blood and soil, the new
Serbian nationalists also
summoned to life the symbolic mediaeval figure of mother Yugovich-the
long suffering,
brave, stoic mother of nine, offering her children up to death in the
defense of the
fatherland. Maternity is now to be seen as an obligation, not as a
free option for women;
the sexuality of women has to be controlled and reduced to
procreation"(Zajovic December 1991, 26).
Militaristic nationalism insists that Serbian women must have
more
babies so that
the nation will be able to defend itself in war. One politician said,
"I call upon
all Serbian women to give birth to one more son in order to carry out their national debt.” Following the war
in Slovenia,
another politician said, “For each soldier fallen in the war against
Slovenia,
Serbian women must give birth to 100 more sons” (Zajovic December
1991, 26).
Abortion has been readily available to women in
Serbia by special law since 1951. In the new Constitution of 1974
abortion was guaranteed
as a human right by Article 191 of “Free Parenthood.” This
article protected
“the human right to decide about the birth of one’s own
children”(Mladjenovic and Litricin October 1992).
In April 1992, a new constitution was formed for the "Third
Yugoslavia."
It eliminated Article 191 on "Free-Parenthood." Nationalists
called for legal
restrictions on abortions by comparing the number of abortions to the
number of soldiers
killed in the war.
There is little education available on birth control and there is
not a consistent
adequate supply of contraceptives. The international sanctions imposed
against Serbia for
its aggression in the other republics, prevented contraceptives from
being imported. By
1994, one pharmaceutical company in Serbia was manufacturing birth
control pills, but the
supply was intermittent and the quality varies. The IUD is used, but
without proper care.
Contraceptives such as the diaphragm and sponge are unavailable. One
woman said she had
only seen a diaphragm once in her life. Although condoms are available
men don’t like
them and often refuse to use them. Withdrawal is still frequently used as
the only form of
birth control. Pregnancy is a constant fear for women. As summarized by
Stanislava
Otaševic, a physician at the Autonomous
Women’s
Center Against Sexual Violence, “No one is educated. Women are not
consulted. No one
speaks with them.”
Ethnic Cleansing, Rape and War
Crimes
"Ethnic cleansing" is a term for the mass expulsion,
killing and raping
of people. In this war it has been carried out mainly by Serb
paramilitaries and the army.
These acts meet the legal definition of genocide—the attempt to
destroy in whole or
in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Many civilians
were, and are being
killed, others were, and are being forced from their homes to become
refugees or into
concentration camps.
In the wars of ethnic cleansing in Croatia and
Bosnia-Herzegovina, sexual abuse
and violence against women was central in the planned policy of
"ethnic
cleansing." When the Yugoslav Federal Army shelled cities in Bosnia,
maternity
hospitals were targeted. Special concentration camps were set-up to rape
and prostitute
women; these hotels and prisons were called rape camps by survivors. In
Vogosca, near
Sarajevo, Bosnia women with Croat and Muslim names were killed after they
were raped; in
Foca, the Serbs held women for months in an indoor sports arena where
nightly men would
come with flashlights to make their choices for rape; at Omarska, women
were forced by
Serb soldiers to work during the day and were raped according to a
schedule, once every
four nights (Gutman 1993).
From the start of the war in Bosnia in 1992, Serbian paramilitary
forces committed
systematic rape against Muslim and Croat women. Later, in Spring 1993,
Bosnian Croat
nationalists adopted the strategy to create an ethnically pure Croatian
sector (Gutman
1994). Forces of the predominantly Muslim government of Bosnia have also
been charged with
atrocities, but these do not appear to be government policy as with the
Serbs. Women of
all nationalities have been raped, but Muslim women have been
disproportionately among the
victims, and Serbian paramilitaries disproportionately among the rapists
(Stiglmayer
1994). Also implicated in the sexual abuse and prostitution of women are
the United
Nations "peacekeeping" forces (Gutman 31 October 1993;
Bernstein 21 June 1993).
Forced impregnation has also been a weapon of nationalism and
ethnic cleansing in
the campaign of violence against women in Bosnia. In this constructed
ideology the
ethnicity of a baby is the same as its father. Serb soldiers and
paramilitary troops who
raped women told them that they would give birth to "little
Chetniks" or Serbian
soldiers, who would grow up to kill them. Other Croat or Muslim women
were told that if a
woman carries a Serbian baby, then she too is Serb (State Commission for
Gathering Facts
on War Crimes in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina October 1992).
Some women were
held in rape camps in Bosnia until their pregnancies were so advanced
that they would not
be able to obtain an abortion (Tresnjevika 28 September 1992). Since the
goal of ethnic
cleansing is the creation of an ethnically and nationally pure
population, the forced
impregnation of non-Serb women has required some twists in thinking in
Serbian nationalist
ideology.
Refugees in
Serbia
"You can go anywhere in the world but home" said Milka
Zulicic, economist and refugee from Sarajevo living in
Belgrade
(Statement made at a workshop at the Third International Meeting of Women
in Black, Novi
Sad, Serbia, 4 - 6 August 1994). She is Montenegrin, but keeps her
husband’s Muslim
name, although he has been dead many years. In February 1993 she
sent her oldest
son, age 21, to Montenegro by train to get food from relatives living
there. When the
train passed near the border of Bosnia a group of unidentified men
entered the train and
asked for identification. Zulicic’s son
and 18 men with
Muslim names were removed from the train. None of them has been seen
since. It is thought
that the leader of this paramilitary unit is a member of the Serbian
Parliament. Now, Ms.
Zulicic in an active member of Women in Black and waits with her
other son for
immigration visas to somewhere else in the world.
Traditionally, refugees are thought to be those who have
"fled," but the
refugees who have become politically active in Belgrade clearly and
forcefully state that
they are those who have been "expelled." They were forced to
leave their homes
and regions by military aggression. All would like to return home.
Instead they are forced
to apply for and await immigration to receptive countries all over the
world. The
implication is that they will never, or at least not in the foreseeable
future, return to
their homes or homeland.
According to the Serbian Commissariat for Refugees and the Red
Cross of Serbia at
the end of 1993 there were 559,000 registered and 150,000 unregistered
refugees in the
territory of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. As with most refugee
populations they are
predominantly women and children. Of the adults, 84 percent are women. A
sizeable
percentage of the children are without parents, because their families in
Bosnia-Herzegovina sent them to Serbia to be safe with relatives or
friends for what they
thought would be a short period of time. A number of these children have
been sent since
to live in orphanages or refugee camps. Over 95 percent of the refugees
live with
relatives or friends, only 4.8 percent live in refugee camps, which are
old barracks and
dormitories away from the population centers, with no
transportation
In some cases women resorted to prostitution to feed themselves
and their
children. Due to the unpopularity of the Serbian regime, aid from
humanitarian sources was
scarce. Refugees are often harassed and made to feel guilty for being a
burden. Fights
often break out in schools between refugee and local children. Refugees
are also subject
to nationalistic harassment because they speak with a Bosnian dialect.
Some women say they
are afraid to speak in public.
In 1995 the Croatian army "ethnically cleansed" eastern
Slavonia of its
Serbian population, driving over 100,000 people from this region in Croatia into Serbia. Miloševic relocated
many of these
refugees in Kosovo to add more Serbs to the predominantly ethnic Albanian
population.
Feminist Organizing
and Resistance to
Nationalism and Militarism
Feminism Prior to the
Wars
Compared to the other former Communist countries the borders of
Yugoslavia were
more open, allowing communication and exchange of ideas, one of which was
feminism. The
first presentation of contemporary feminist ideas was at a Croatian
sociological
association meeting in 1976. The first feminist conference, The
Woman’s Question:
A New Approach, was held in 1978 at the Student’s Cultural
Center in Belgrade.
The purpose of the meeting was to introduce the ideas of feminism and
begin to challenge
socialist patriarchy and the assumption that
women’s
struggle was synonymous with class struggle (Papic 1995). Inspired and
motivated by this
meeting “Woman and Society” discussion groups formed in Zagreb
and Belgrade.
In 1986 feminists in Belgrade defined their organization,
"Women and
Society" as feminist. The Yugoslav governmental organization The
Conference for the
Social Activities of Women condemned this move and accused the group of
being an
"enemy of the state," "pro-capitalist," and
"pro-western."
The group operated independently without state institutional or financial
support (Mladjenovic and Litricin October 1992). The growth
of feminist
groups was also hindered by the Communist ideology that everyone must
work together for
change. Many of the women did not want to exclude men. When men came to
meetings they
always wanted to know why the group only talked about women. The
fear of women-only
groups was a challenge to creating feminist organizations.
The feminist group in Belgrade held workshops and public
discussions on violence,
abortion, sexuality, worker’s rights, psychiatry and medicine. On
International
Women’s Day, 8 March, they did research on the streets of Belgrade
by stopping women
and asking them ten questions about their lives. Five years later, on the
same day, women
in Belgrade founded the SOS Hotline for Women and Children Victims of
Violence.
Feminist organizations have supported democratization in
Yugoslavia. In 1990 the
first multi-party elections were held in Yugoslavia. In that year
feminists formed four
women’s organizations. In the summer of 1990 women from different
non-nationalistic
parties formed the Women’s Lobby to create a space for women’s
critical voices
and to influence public opinion and the policies of the political parties
in the election.
The Women’s Lobby took a strong stand against nationalism because of
the
nationalists’ call for women to have more babies for greater Serbia.
On 5 December
1990 the Women’s Lobby issued a call to voters, "Do not vote
for the Serbian
Socialist Party, Serbian Radical Party, Serbian People’s Renovation
and all other
nationalist, Fascist, warrior parties" (Women in Black, 17 December
1992, 101).
As the elections approached in the fall 1990 women formed the
Women’s Party,
ZEST (an acronym for Ženska Stranka,
the Z stood for
women, E for ethics, S for solidarity and T for tolerance). The women saw
a need for a
women’s party because “[a]lthough legally equal and free, women
have for decades
been living the life of second-rate citizens and unrealized and
subjected
individuals in the family and society alike"(The Women’s Party
1990). ZEST had
three Principles of Activity: 1) "For democracy and against all
forms and aspects of
discrimination and authoritarian power and authority in society," 2)
"For peace,
tolerance and co-operation among nations and peoples," 3) "For
quality of life
as a crucial aim of development." With the aim of improving the
lives of women, they
organized public discussions about housewives, women artists and work. As
militarism grew
they lobbied the Parliaments of the republics to negotiate a peace
(Cockburn 1991).
The election resulted in a Serbian Parliament with only 1.6
percent women (the
lowest percentage in Europe), so women formed the Women’s Parliament
on 8 March 1991
to monitor new laws that pertained to women
(Mladjenovic and
Litricin October 1992). Throughout 1990 and 1991 women’s groups
organized and
participated in protests calling for women’s rights and a
demilitarization of
Yugoslavia.
During the time the women’s groups were forming and
evolving, nationalism was
intensifying, forcing women’s groups to decide where they stood. The
Women’s
Lobby and Women in Black took anti-nationalist stands and said so
publicly. ZEST, the
Women’s Party disbanded because of conflicts over nationalism. The
SOS Hotline for
Women and Children Victims of Violence made a policy of non-nationalism
that created
conflicts among the volunteers. Eventually some of the women with
nationalistic views
left, but some stayed and remained silent
(Mladjenovic and
Litricin October 1992).
Transformation of Women’s
Lives
The end of socialism, growing nationalism and eventual war with
the intent of
creating a Greater Serbia through ethnic cleansing had a live
transforming effect on many
women. For many women, in many ways, their lives would never be the
same.
Zorica Mrševic, observed how
her life changed
from 1990 to 1994.
"I have been a witness to how easily what has
been socially
constructed can be destroyed. Within a few months practically
everything was changed. All
the rules of the game are now different. Institutions for which we
believed would exist
forever don’t exist anymore. All that I had invested myself in
is worth nothing. We
became miserable. In the previous time, we lived an easy life-not on
a high standard, but
somehow, everything was easy—to go on holiday, to get a flat
from the institution
where you worked, to buy new clothes, to eat whatever you wanted, to
have fun, to visit
restaurants, to travel abroad, to have free medical care. Now we
spend practically all our
earned money only for food. Our clothes and shoes, as well as our
health and good moods,
come from the previous time. The winter of 1993/1994 was the hardest
in my life. We lived
by eating only potatoes and beans and we had to spend our life
savings to buy that. Our
salaries were between 10 and 20 DM per month."
