September, 12 2017, 10:45am EDT

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7413 5566,After hours: +44 7778 472 126,Email:,press@amnesty.org
Bosnia and Herzegovina: Last Chance For Justice For Over 20,000 Wartime Sexual Violence Survivors
WASHINGTON
A quarter of a century after the start of the conflict, more than 20,000 survivors of wartime sexual violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina are still being denied justice, said Amnesty International in a new report.
"We need support, not pity:" Last chance for justice for Bosnia's wartime rape survivors reveals the devastating physical and psychological consequences of these crimes and the unjustifiable barriers preventing women from accessing the support they need and the legal redress to which they are entitled.
"More than two decades after the war, tens of thousands of women in Bosnia are still piecing together their shattered lives with little access to the medical, psychological and financial assistance they desperately need," said Gauri van Gulik, Amnesty International's Deputy Europe Director.
"As each year passes, so does the prospect of ever attaining justice or receiving the support to which they are entitled. These women can not forget what happened to them and neither should we."
The report, based on research conducted over two years, reveals how systemic obstacles combined with a lack of political consensus have consigned a generation of survivors - raped during the 1992-5 war - to penury and hardship.
During the conflict thousands of women and girls were subjected to rape and other forms of sexual violence by military and paramilitary groups. Many were enslaved, tortured and even forcibly impregnated in so-called 'rape camps'.
Elma was four months pregnant when she was taken to a rape camp and gang-raped on a daily basis. She told Amnesty International: "They would wear balaclavas and ask me if I could guess which one was on top of me. These were all local boys."
As a result of the physical abuse, she lost her baby and suffered lasting injuries to her spine. Almost 25 years on, Elma, who is unemployed, has not received any meaningful financial support from the state and is in desperate need of medical and psychological assistance.
Interminable delays in justice
Since war crimes trials began in Bosnia in 2004, less than 1% of the total estimated number of victims of war crimes of sexual violence have come to court. Courts across the country have completed only 123 cases involving sexual violence charges and although the number of prosecutions has increased in recent years, more must be done to ensure the perpetrators are brought to justice.
After the war, Sanja, a woman who had been held captive and repeatedly raped by a soldier and his comrades, reported him to the authorities. The police and judicial authorities failed to take action against the perpetrator and social services failed to recognize Sanja's situation and provide assistance. She told Amnesty International: "I don't trust anyone any more, especially not the state. They all failed me."
While there has been significant progress in witness protection and support, this could be undermined by high acquittal rates in several jurisdictions and often-reduced sentences for those convicted. Meanwhile the increase in the number of cases prosecuted cannot mask the huge backlog of cases.
Slow and inadequate justice has discouraged survivors from coming forward undermining confidence in the criminal justice system and generating an overwhelming sense of impunity.
One woman who was raped multiple times by paramilitaries at her home and at a police station points out that "Most survivors will not live long enough to see justice being done. In a few years, the courts will run out of cases; there won't be any survivors, perpetrators or witnesses alive to go through the trials."
Women left without support
There have been recent changes aimed at strengthening access to support and improving services for survivors. However these remain piecemeal and vary dramatically in different parts of the country. Unless these changes are fully institutionalized in all parts of the country, their impact will be limited and haphazard.
Women victims of sexual violence tend to experience high rates of unemployment and poverty and are among the most vulnerable economic groups in Bosnia. And yet only around 800 survivors have been able to access some monthly allowances and other basic benefits. In the absence of a formal reparation scheme, survivors have to navigate a complex array of existing social allowances and judicial proceedings in criminal and civil courts, in an attempt to claim their rights.
Since benefits and services are not universally guaranteed or harmonised across the country, access to them varies depending on place of residence. For example, Republika Srpska does not recognise survivors of conflict-related sexual violence as a special category of war crimes victims and restricts access to any reparation or support severely. These provisions have prevented most survivors of sexual violence living there from accessing a monthly allowance, as well as free healthcare, rehabilitation and psychological and social support.
Obstacles like these discourage many victims from coming forward and force others to engage in administrative acrobatics, trading one right for another, in order to access benefits. A number of women described to Amnesty International how they were forced to change their official residency in order to obtain the monthly allowance. This entailed losing the right to access public services, including badly needed health and social care, in the places where they actually live.
"The authorities must remove these discriminatory obstacles which prevent access to reparations and replace them with measures that guarantee equal protection and support for all survivors regardless of where they live," said Gauri van Gulik.
"Recent years have seen important improvements but there is still a great distance to travel. Whilst the trauma of the past can never be unlived, it is not too late to ensure that the future of these women is one where their rights and their dignity can finally be reclaimed."
Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights for all. Our supporters are outraged by human rights abuses but inspired by hope for a better world - so we work to improve human rights through campaigning and international solidarity. We have more than 2.2 million members and subscribers in more than 150 countries and regions and we coordinate this support to act for justice on a wide range of issues.
LATEST NEWS
Trump-Musk Gutting of USAID Could Lead to More Than 14 Million Deaths Over Five Years: Study
"For many low and middle income countries, the resulting shock would be comparable in scale to a global pandemic or a major armed conflict," said the coordinator behind the study.
Jul 01, 2025
A study published Monday by the medical journal The Lancet found that deep funding cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development, a main target of the Department of Government Efficiency's government-slashing efforts, could result in more than 14 million additional deaths by the year 2030.
For months, humanitarian programs and experts have sounded the alarm on the impact of cutting funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which is the largest funding agency for humanitarian and development aid around the globe, according to the study.
"Our analysis shows that USAID funding has been an essential force in saving lives and improving health outcomes in some of the world's most vulnerable regions over the past two decades," said Daniella Cavalcanti, postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Collective Health and an author of the study, according to a statement published Tuesday. Between 2001 and 2021, an estimated 91 million deaths were prevented in low and middle income countries thanks programs supported by USAID, according to the study.
The study was coordinated by researchers from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health with the help of the Institute of Collective Health of the Federal University of Bahia, the University of California Los Angeles, and the Manhiça Centre for Health Research, as well as others.
To project the future consequences of USAID funding cuts and arrive at the 14 million figure, the researchers used forecasting models to simulate the impact of two scenarios, continuing USAID funding at 2023 levels versus implementing the reductions announced earlier this year, and then comparing the two.
Those estimated 14 million additional deaths include 4.5 million deaths among children younger than five, according to the researchers.
The journalist Jeff Jarvis shared reporting about the study and wrote "murder" on X on Tuesday.
In March, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the 83% of the programs at USAID were being canceled. In the same post on X, he praised the Department of Government Efficiency, which at that point had already infiltrated the agency. "Thank you to DOGE and our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform," he wrote.
Davide Rasella, research professor at Barcelona Institute for Global Health and coordinator of the study, said in a statement Tuesday that "our projections indicate that these cuts could lead to a sharp increase in preventable deaths, particularly in the most fragile countries. They risk abruptly halting—and even reversing—two decades of progress in health among vulnerable populations. For many low- and middle-income countries, the resulting shock would be comparable in scale to a global pandemic or a major armed conflict."
One country where USAID cuts have had a particularly deadly impact is Sudan, according to The Washington Post, which reported on Monday that funding shortages have led to lack of medical supplies and food in the war-torn nation.
"There's a largely unspoken and growing death toll of non-American lives thanks to MAGA," wrote Ishaan Tharoor, a Post columnist, of the paper's reporting on Sudan.
In reference to the reporting on Sudan, others laid blame on billionaire Elon Musk, the billionaire and GOP mega-donor who was initially tapped to lead the Department of Government Efficiency.
"In a less imperfect world, Musk and [President Donald] Trump would be forever cast as killers of children, and this would be front-page news for months and the subject of Sunday sermons in every church," wrote the journalist David Corn.
Keep ReadingShow Less
GOP Still Lacks Votes to Pass Budget Bill 'Because It's a Moral Monstrosity,' Says Senate Democrat
"We have been debating amendments for 21 hours and we are still going because through 12 hours of debate and 21 hours of amendment votes, Republicans still don't have 50 votes for their bill," said Sen. Chris Murphy.
Jul 01, 2025
Even after an all-night session of amendment votes and wrangling behind closed doors, Senate Republicans still did not have enough support to pass their reconciliation package as of Tuesday morning, leaving party leaders scrambling to placate GOP holdovers who are purportedly nervous about the legislation's unprecedented cuts to Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) argued in a social media post that the reason for the GOP's inability to quickly rally its own members around the legislation is straightforward: "Because it's a moral monstrosity."
"We have been debating amendments for 21 hours and we are still going because through 12 hours of debate and 21 hours of amendment votes, Republicans still don't have 50 votes for their bill," Murphy wrote at roughly 5:30 am ET, as the marathon "vote-a-rama" continued with no end in sight.
With Democrats unanimously opposed to the bill, Senate Republicans can only afford to lose three GOP votes if they are to send the measure back to the House for final approval. Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) have said they will vote against the bill in its current form, and Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) are undecided. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) also suggested he's on the fence.
Republican leaders have been working to bring Murkowski into the yes column with a proposal that would temporarily exempt Alaska and other states from the bill's massive cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the top Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, ripped the proposal as "absurd" and said it would reward the states with the highest SNAP error rates.
"Insanity reigns," Klobuchar wrote on social media.
Senate Republicans' margins became more difficult after Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) announced his opposition to the legislation over the weekend, pointing to the Senate version's devastating cuts to Medicaid.
"What do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding's not there anymore?" Tillis asked in a floor speech on Sunday, citing an estimate of the number of people in North Carolina who could lose health insurance under the Republican bill.
Throughout the country, nearly 12 million people would lose coverage under the Senate reconciliation bill, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
"Kicking millions off healthcare, blowing up the national debt by trillions, and devastating generational economic harms—all being written into law on the fly," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said early Tuesday morning after hours of debate and amendment votes.
Keep ReadingShow Less
At Least 95 Palestinians Killed in Israeli Attacks Including Massacres at Beach Café, Aid Points
"I saw body parts flying everywhere, and bodies cut and burned," said one eyewitness to a strike on the popular al-Baqa Café.
Jun 30, 2025
Israeli forces ramped up their genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip Monday, killing at least 95 Palestinians in attacks including massacres at a seaside café and a humanitarian aid distribution center and bombings of five school shelters housing displaced families and a hospital where refugees were sheltering in tents.
An Israeli strike targeted the al-Baqa Café in western Gaza City, one of the few operating businesses remaining after 633 days of Israel's obliteration of the coastal strip and a popular gathering place for journalists, university students, artists, and others seeking reliable internet service and a respite from nearly 21 months of near-relentless attacks.
Medical sources said at least 33 civilians were killed and nearly 50 others wounded in the massacre, including footballer Mustafa Abu Amira, photojournalist Ismail Abu Hatab—who survived an earlier Israeli airstrike and is reportedly the 227th journalists killed by Israel since October 2023—and prominent artist Frans Al-Salmi, whose final painting depicting a young Palestinian woman killed by Israeli forces resembles photographs of its slain creator posted on social media after her killing.
Warning: Photos shows image of death
Survivor Ali Abu Ateila toldThe Associated Press that the café was crowded with women and children at the time of the attack.
"Without a warning, all of a sudden, a warplane hit the place, shaking it like an earthquake," he said.
Another survivor of the massacre told Britain's Sky News: "All I see is blood... Unbelievable. People come here to take a break from what they see inside Gaza. They come westward to breathe."
Eyewitness Ahmed Al-Nayrab toldAgence France-Presse that a "huge explosion shook the area."
"I saw body parts flying everywhere, and bodies cut and burned," he said. "It was a scene that made your skin crawl."
Witnesses and officials said Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) troops opened fire on Palestinians seeking food and other humanitarian aid from a U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution point in southern Gaza, killing 15 people amid near-daily massacres of aid-seekers.
"We were targeted by artillery," survivor Monzer Hisham Ismail told The Associated Press. Another survivor, Yousef Mahmoud Mokheimar, told the AP that Israeli troops "fired at us indiscriminately." Mokheimar was shot in the leg, another man who tried to rescue him was also shot.
IDF troops have killed nearly 600 Palestinian aid-seekers and wounded more than 4,000 others over the past month, with Israeli military officers and soldiers saying they were ordered to deliberately fire on civilians in search of food and other necessities amid Israel's weaponized starvation of Gaza.
Another 13 people were reportedly killed Monday when IDF warplanes bombed an aid warehouse in the Zeitoun quarter of southern Gaza City, according to al-Ahli Baptist Hospital officials cited by The Palestine Chronicle. IDF warplanes also reportedly bombed five schools housing displaced families, three of them in Zeitoun. Israeli forces also bombed the courtyard of al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where thousands of forcibly displaced Palestinian families are sheltering in tents. It was reportedly the 12th time the hospital has been bombed since the start of the war.
The World Health Organization has documented more than 700 attacks on Gaza healthcare facilities since October 2023. Most of Gaza's hospitals are out of service due to Israeli attacks, some of which have been called genocidal by United Nations experts.
Israel's overall behavior in the war is the subject of an ongoing International Court of Justice genocide case, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and using starvation as a weapon of war.
Since October 2023, Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 204,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including over 14,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried under rubble, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, whose casualty figures have been found to be generally accurate and even a likely undercount by peer-reviewed studies.
The intensified IDF attacks follow Israel's issuance of new forced evacuation orders amid the ongoing Operation Gideon's Chariots, an ongoing offensive which aims to conquer and indefinitely occupy all of Gaza and ethnically cleanse much of its population, possibly to make way for Jewish recolonization as advocated by many right-wing Israelis.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular