Category: Kosova

Sexual Violence Against Men in War

  By Kosova, Sexual Violence

Historically sexual violence has been used as a weapon of war, for as long as there have been wars on earth. Rape is used to instill terror, and humiliate people, to destroy not only individuals, but families, communities and society as well. The consequences of this organized crime, which is used as a weapon of war, are deeply felt even when the war is over.  I, who work with survivor of  sexual violence during the war,  I see  every day the pain that the survivors face not only because of what happened during the war, but also the stigma that they face today.

Twenty three (23) years have passed since the end of the war, and Arbeni (name changed) comes for the first time to the Kosovo Center for the Rehabilitation of Torture Survivors, for the first he reveals the painful experience of sexual violence he experienced in 1999, and the pain feels fresh as if the event had happened yesterday. It is very difficult for him to speak, but two drops of tears flow down his cheeks and he quickly tries to wipe them away, as if with this he could erase his entire painful experience, although it is impossible. The only thing that he constantly repeats is: “My life is destroyed, I used to be a teacher, and now I’m nobody”

The trauma experienced by sexual violence and the fear of stigmatization made Arbeni change his place of residence, lose his job, and isolate himself and suffer in silence.

Like Arbeni, many others continue to suffer in silence. In the Kosovar society, sexual violence continues to be silent and hidden. Sexual violence, among other things, is precisely imposing  silence, guilt and shame. The essence of sexual violence against men and boys is their humiliation and degradation.

Sexually abused men and boys live with tremendous stigma in our society, just like the women and girls who experienced this war crime. They live with the heavy burden of shame that they could not defend themselves from the humiliating act of rape, they feel discouraged and guilty, unable to access sources of help. Psychologically, the experience of sexual violence shakes the foundations of their identity as men and leads them to keep this suffering secret, embarrassing. But suppressing the pain does not undo it, rather it cuts it off from the possibility of treatment and healing.

Kosovo is working hard to fight the stigma of sexual violence during the war. As a psychotherapist, my colleagues and I , every day we are working hard to creating a perception of acceptance, encouraging survivors for accessing treatment and overcoming trauma. We all can do something to make a positive difference in the survivors’ lives.

Seville Izeti

War Survivor faces COVID

  By Kosova, Medical

By: Selvi Izeti Çarkaxhiu – Psychologist, KRCT

Story from: ‘The diary of psychotherapy with survivors of sexual violence during the war in Kosovo.’

The survivors during the Pandemic – excerpt and summary from the psychotherapy sessions with one of the survivors of sexual violence during the war. The psychologist’s reflection of the work with the client during the period of COVID-19pandemic.

“I am a survivor!”

“I was merely 16 years old when they raped me during the war, but it took me 18 years to recover from the consequences. When the war ended, my friends continued their education, their lives, realized their dreams, while my own life got frozen in time, a part of me died, my dreams withered and I lived with my broken soul in a body that often felt as if it weren’t my own. After 18 years, with the help of the organization where I was given the opportunity to work on myself, on my pain and my crushing memories, to give meaning to what had happened, I gathered all of my strength bit by bit and began to return to life, within me a hope was reborn and I began to see things differently, I felt I was a survivor! I decided to let go of the bitter past and spread my wings towards the future, because it looked beautiful indeed. Precisely when I emerged from my spiritual isolation, I find myself today isolated within four walls by this damned virus. I feel like screaming at the top of my lungs and tell it: I am not afraid of you, I have overcome much more, even when I felt alone! I will survive you as well, because now I AM NO LONGER ALONE!

Selvije, Psychologist

In my 13 years of experience working with war trauma, I have heard stories that were indeed horrible, that break your heart, some of which were so devastating that the brain no longer understands and finds it difficult to accept that the human hand is capable of doing so much harm. We, who work with the survivors of sexual violence know these stories, it is us who listen to them attentively ever day while they talk about their pain, fear and traumas. We are the ones who receive difficult emotions in the psychotherapy room, and try to contain them, which helps the survivors feel understood and supported. 

By the end of a session we often feel deeply touched by the stories of the survivors, by their emotions and experiences. Even though in most cases we manage to separate their turmoil from our personal lives, it isn’t always easy. Sometimes I even allowed myself to shed tears in response to what I was hearing, because compassion doesn’t necessarily come from identification with the circumstances, but moreso from the connection, understanding and being with the survivors while they release the negative emotions that are associated with traumatic experiences. In our work, we console, calm and help people in using every resource available to them to cope with the trauma, even though these resources are often limited. But, stories such as HANA’s who despite the pain, finds the strength to cope with life and move on, further inspire and empower us to continue with our work. Hana, in the story she narrated during the online sessions, had decided to irrevocably pull herself out of the quicksand that would neither swallow her nor allow her to be free. From the quicksand of the trauma that kept her paralysed for all these years. Twenty years from the day when the clock stopped ticking for her, now it has resumed! She has stood up, has decided to live as she is ought to live, because she feels that she HAS SURVIVED THE TRAUMA!

Sexual Violence Against Men

  By Kosova, Sexual Violence

This article is by Selvi Izeti, a traumatologist whom I met in Italy at an advanced Harvard training program. I visited Ms Izeti in Kosova and sat in on her trauma resolution groups. Ms Izeti, an Albanian was a refugee during the Serb attempt at Albanian genocide.

Andrea Steffens
           •••••••••
Sexual violence against men and boys in Kosovo during the recent war is estimated to be about 20,000.

Most victims were women and girls. but there have also been reports of incidents with male victims of sexual violence. 

The actual number of rape victims will never be established, but the estimates range from several thousand  to tens of thousands and  only for period between August 1998 and August 1999 (Amnesty International. Time for EULEX to Prioritize War Crimes. 2012).
             
In general when we talk about sexual violence during the war,  it is the sexual violence against women as a weapon of war but does not place much emphasis  on men which also happened  as well.

Even  physicians and counselors are  not well trained to recognize the signs of rape in men, which makes men feel less understood and supported.

There is a lack of data on sexual violence in Kosovo against men but from counselors Like myself,  working with former war prisoners, it is reported that sexual violence occured while they were  held in arbitrary detention in Kosovo and Serbia. Sexual violence during the war against man happen  also in public facilities/hostages situation, displacement situation, and in their homes in the presence  of family members.

From experience in my clinical work ,male survivors are even more reluctant to talk about sexual violence than women because of the shame, guilt and stigma associated with male sexual violence.Shame and social stigma keep many survivors silent. For men, the idea of being a victim of sexual violence is very difficult to cope with. 

Men have grown up with the belief that they should be able to protect themselves and that they should be willing to risk their lives or serious injury to protect their pride and self-respect. These beliefs about “manhood” are deeply rooted in most survivors of sexual violence and can lead to intense feelings of guilt, shame, and disability.

It doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman, sexual violence is a trauma. The trauma of sexual violence comes from losing control of your body due to fear of death or injury. 

Talking about sexual violence against men and boys helps break the stigma that, and hopefully, will result in more support for survivors.

We all can help survivors of sexual violence by being their voice, by being there TO HEAR them, to understand and  to help them. We cannot change their past but we certainly can change their future! 

Selvi Izeti, traumatologist
Pristina, Kosovo

A Village of War Widows

  By Food, Kosova

In southwest Kosovo there is a village known as Village of War Widows. In 1999 this village was populated with both Albanian and Serbian, but in March 1999 the Former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s military forces had descended on this rural village and separated the men from their families.What happened not only decimated the village’s male population but was one of the most violent incidents of the  Kosovo War. All the man of this village were and none of the men from the village returned. Over 100 men, including boys as young as 12 – all ethnic Albanians – were rounded up and killed in a raid by Serbian police, just one  day after the first NATO air strikes began. Eighty-two women were widowed and many children became fatherless.

The women first were forced to flee to the nearby mountains and then to neighboring Albania. They didn’t know nothing for the fate of their husbands and sons until the war was  over.

When they returned they found the entire village in ruins,  homes burned down, everything was destroyed.  Many of their husbands were found  dead  bur many still remain missing. Almost 70 per cent of Krusha’s male population is still missing, so  the life of women in this village changed radically.  Everything that was burned had to be rebuild. Woman had to  figure out a way to survive on their own by taking on the role of provider for the family.  They took all the farm jobs usually regarded as man’s work – driving tractors, ploughing, crop picking. without their loved ones, they had to become farmers in order to earn a living and support their families.

Many of them began to grow peppers and prepare ajvar (red pepper spread, which can be quite spicy as well). They tried to sold jars of homemade ajvar in Kosovo’s newly liberated capital, Pristina, and in open air markets.

Latter in 2005 woman joined together to make the Ajvar and other Kosovar staple such as Turshi (pickled vegetables) in mass production. They could help each other to rebuild their lives.

Today they runs a pepper cooperative, Kooperativa Krusha, with the help of UNSAID and the World Bank. They fill around 700 jars every day at the pepper factory and prepare up to 8,000 bottles of Ajvar for just one order to Germany or Switzerland, where most of the Albanian diaspora live. People other than Albanians are discovering Ajvar.

Women of murdered male villagers (husbands, brothers, fathers,

sons )overcame many hurdles, particularly Kosovo society’s expectation that widowed women should stay home and not go out alone without a male protector. They broke the taboo to change the mentality. These woman, the  Ajvar makers have found their own ways to deal with tragedy.

The war widows are an inspiration to all women They mourn their loss and will always remember the men and boys they can never bring back. But the women have also partly overcome their tragedy by finding the strength to pick up the pieces, support one another, survive and succeed.

The Shooting of Freedom in Kosova

  By Childhood Trauma, Kosova

Uran’s Story:

For twenty years, the Albanian people living in Kosovo were treated like second-class citizens by the Serbian population. In an effort to force Albanians to leave Kosovo, there were tight restrictions on what the Albanian population could and could not do in their  country: their children weren’t allowed to attend formal schools, their sick weren’t allowed to seek medical care from hospitals, activities of their cultural organizations were restricted, and unemployment was high. But instead of fleeing their country, Kosovar Albanians were resilient and learned to adapt. Their determination and refusal to give up their country led to war.

The story of our tragedy began in 1998.  I was eight years old, the youngest of five children in my family.

I heard the news on the radio and television that the invaders’  had intensified persecution against the Kosovar civilian population, against the activities and goals of the Albanian people for freedom and every man who would dare to think about freedom. For one-hundred years, the Serbs had been trying to wipe out  Albanian culture and identity, using force,  killing and torturing. The beatings, harassment, and persecution continued across the country. The enemy knew when the  revolt was planned, and used kidnappings, beatings, shooting, and torture to prevent it. My grandfather was tortured by being held in water that was -20°C. Day by day the rope came and grew tighter.

It started on an ordinary day in the spring, as the neighborhood children were playing in my backyard – games like volleyball, football, sticks and balls, and even mud. Suddenly, we heard a barrage of bullets which were more intense than usual — this time not stopping accompanied by caliber artillery. Our game stopped, and while all the others scattered to their houses, I was completely shocked and stood motionless while following the story, another version that had just begun. Then I heard in the streets, the rattling of cannons and tanks, but also the sweet response of rifles. Were these the shots of Freedom Fighters  signaling the open resistance of my Albanian people in Kosovo?

Soon the roads were cleared and the village was silent. We saw the smoke coming out of houses that had been burned. Sixteen Albanian warriors were murdered by the enemy that day but they succeeded in their mission – protecting the civilians. Although they gave their lives for us, they will always be with us – the living – in our hearts. Tears came and did not stop, our hearts split in two. We heard the moaning of the martyrs who were dying among others who’d been killed. The land smelled like smoke flames and flesh coming from burning villages.

The war had begun. With it, my parents’ worry.

We were 5 children between the ages of 8-15 years of age.   I was the youngest  Not much later, the time of moving out of the house came. It was the worst moment of my life, indescribable feelings of fear, pain and longing. Pain from having to leave and longing that we would not have to.  We left our house, the garden, and everything we had. Spring had stopped for us. Towers collapsed, meadows burned. And every inch of ground roared from the bombing offensive. The occupation had been taken against us just because we were Albanians, just because we spoke the most beautiful language in the World, and just because we dared ask for FREEDOM.

We left by a long mountain road, and everywhere heard gunfire contrasted with weeping erupting through the silence of the night. The mountains resounded with gunfire from the enemy punctuating the determination of the invaders, and with that,  the screams and crying of civilians trying to escape. There was much sadness. And even more chilling was the fact that we did not have even the slightest idea about where we were heading, or what awaited us on the other side of the hill that day. We thought this might be the end for us, as it was for many others.

We snuggled deep in the mountains to avoid the bullets pouring from wherever you looked. The sound never ceased, the thirst for blood was great that day.  Anyone who had fallen along the way was killed. The evening came with a Grace-like  silence reigning everywhere. The babies and young children were wrapped up by their mothers, in an effort to prevent them from seeing the horror of our plight and keeping them warm.. But they were experiencing the horror with us. We were without food, water, and shelter. We, heard only a few babies, softly weeping. We had travelled past the long-beautiful oaks of our motherland, now on our fifth day in a row walking under the open sky. We remained anxious about what awaited us this time. We had not eaten for 3 days.

After that, the situation calmed down somehow, but still we continued our journey to the capital (Pristina) hoping that there we would find peace. We were exhausted from walking twenty kilometers each day, and were dejected because we had been exiled. With the help of several friends, we found a temporary residence where we spent the next 6 months. In the moment we thought things are getting better everything just gone worse. At the meantime we were happy for the roof that we found there, but it was winter, a hard cold winter, we didn’t have woods for the fire to get ourselves heat , we didn’t have enough food to feed ourselves. Even as a child I remember everything, on returning back from school  I used to stop to the markets to get papers and carton to get warmed at least before bad time. The next six months gone like this, but everything stopped in a morning when Serbian barbarians came to get us out even from there. They used brutal force on everyone by trying to show us their “force” that they poses by holding their weapons, they emptied the whole capital that day and brought us to the train station, to transport us with freight train to the border of Macedonia. At the border we waited for ten long days in an open sky, without roof, without food without anything at all. For six days rain did not stop and everyone get wet for the next days, it was terrible time and only on the eleven day we could pass away to the next station…

We then spent another 3 months with a wonderful Albanian family in the neighboring state of Macedonia. They all were kind and lovely and they have done everything to help us, to make us feel like home. They provided a home for us, good food to eat and a pure love on welcoming us.  After the military intervention of NATO, the head of this Albanian family went back to his home where he found everything burned to the ground and houses destroyed. But love of country was greater than the booming barbarian army and from that day he continued life during wartime broken now in peace…!

Barbarians had beaten and mistreated our people, emptying every corner of the country, evicting Albanians from Kosovo as part of the ethnic cleansing of Albanians. From their home country of Kosovo to the neighboring state of Macedonia and Albania. But all that sacrifice wasn’t for nothing, all that bloodshed brought us the FREEDOM. Now we could smell freely in peace. It was what we wanted for centuries, what we were fighting for. Just to free our homelands.

Globalgirl Media

Video

  By Kosova

GlobalGirlLogoGlobalgirl Media is dedicated to empowering high school age girls from under-served communities around the world through media, leadership and journalistic training to have a voice in the global media universe and in their own futures.

We at Ashlar Center believe in this IMPORTANT work!  See the video’s witnessing Kosova women.

GlobalGirl Media invests in girls as agents of change by providing concrete skills with which to improve their personal situations.  Continue reading

Love is what makes me strong – Elife’s Story

  By Kosova

Kosova201513 You may have everything and then lose everything, but still you continue living,  because human beings are stronger than stones.

From my story I want people to understand from all that I have been through and that life has no guarantees.

Kosova: I’m Elife, a 45 year old mother of two children. Married to a man that I loved.  I was lucky because my parents  gave me permission to choose my own husband  compared to many of my other friends whose parents found their husbands.  My friends were forced to marry even if they didn’t like the man they chose.

In the beginning our marriage was a miracle. I was 25 years old, and my husband 29, we loved each other, at least so I thought.  Two years after we were married our first daughter Emma was born  and two years later the second daughter, Linda. Life became harder, since  neither my husband or me was working and the children had their needs, so my husband proposed to go abroad to work in order to improve our economical life. I agree with that and he went in Germany.  Sometimes he sent  us money, even though it wasn’t much, I welcomed it  because  it was the only resource we had to survive.

After one year he came back, and proposed to divorce me but just by documents, because as he  said” I’m going marry with an old lady just in papers, just legally but not as a real husband, and after three years I will divorce with her, and take you and children there” I believed him blandly and did it. I signed. Then he called less and less and he didn’t send money. And then one day he called me.  It was a very quick call and said ” don’t wait for me, continue your life because I will not come back any more.”

I was shocked, I had two children, one four years old and the other one two years old.  I had no house, no place to live and not even support from the state, I felt like I was in an abyss. I was living by charity from everybody, from my friends and relatives. I became very depressed and went to live to my brother house.  He had  six children and he was economically in very bad times.  I was another burden for him.

His wife clearly didn’t like me, and I really understood her situation. I felt bad, guilty.  Then one of my relatives gave me a very old house to live in and I was happy because I could breath freely. I started to  stabilize my live.

I worked with my hands embroidering and sewing.  In this way, I could maintain my  family. I always been a happy person who loved life and I wanted topass that on to my two daughters.  With my whole spirit I  tried  to offer them joy in their lives,  but we were on the brink of war which truly terrified me.  In war, nothing stays the same and you do not know what is going to happen to you.

We lived in a town that was more affected from war than others. But in our neighborhood, the enemy forces didn’t came but still, more and more of the houses grew more empty as people left because they were so afraid of what would happen if they stayed.

Some of them went to the mountains; some who had more money went to Macedonia or Albania. I stayed until April 1999 because I just didn’t know what to do. My children at that time were 6 and 4 years old. I couldn’t go to the mountain and stay because I didn’t have enough food to last us a while and I didn’t go to Albania or Macedonia because I had no money. But money or not, food or not, I left on April 3, when I saw that every single person in our neighborhood was leaving. I joined the column of hundreds of people, some from my neighborhood, and some from other villages.

We walked on a main road toward Macedonia, with the hope that my daughters and me might be able to get on a tractor during our trip. My daughters were so young and there were other children as well but most had help carrying the children.  In the column, people grew very tired. We were mainly woman and children though here and there you could see an old man.  Some of the column of people had been walking for days from other towns. I held my two daughters by their hands and wore on my back, a bag with some food and some clothes.

Fortunately the weather was good.  Sometimes police automobiles drove by and scared me very much but they continued on their way. Their purpose was to remove us from our country and we were walking in that direction. Walking with two tired little girls in dusty shoes.

We walked very slowly for around 5 hours. My four years old daughter was very very tired by this time and begged me to hold her in my arms, but I was too loaded up and could hold her a very short time. It was so hard – small tired children, crying, begging me to hold them, me, a very tired worried mother.

It was 1.pm when the column stopped, remember there are hundreds of us and a message came down through the line of people, frantic whispers that there was a road block of enemy forces before us in a few miles who were stopping and beating everyone.  So the people around me decided get off the main road and head into the mountain. I went with them with my tired children in tow.  With the back having grown very heavy – who knew that so little could weigh so much.

1-dhunimi-385x150As we, the smaller group around fifty or seventy five people, moved toward the mountain we suddenly we found our self-surrounded by enemy. They jumped out at us from the side of the road.  Some of them were dressed like solders and some were dressed in black with head scarves.  I had heard that those men with head scarves were very dangerous.  All of us were in a panic and begun screaming and crying. Then there were shots.  Everyone grew silent.  And we waited for what would happen next.

In Albanian language one said:  “Everyone sit down and if you want to stay alive you will do what we will say.”

Automatically, everyone sat including the children. My daughters were sitting on my lap. Emma seemed very scared, because she was older and could understand things while Linda didn’t know what was happening but she did not want to sit still in my lap.  She wanted to stand up and I had to keep her sitting by force. She was crying and struggling. Two of the Serbs came near us and started choosing woman.

You, you and you.

I prayed God that they would not choose me.  I kept my head down tucked behind children when I heard,  “YOU come here!

My heart was beating so fast, so hard, it was trying to fly from my chest and I barely lifted my head to see if this call was for me. When he said, “Yes YOUUU!”

I was entirely frozen.

Please, I have children. These little girls.

Both of my daughters were crying in terror.

Shssssh. He roughly told them to be quiet.

Where is your husband?

He is in Germany.

ahahahaha

He laughed ironically.

Fighting with Serbs yes? Come here.

He had stopped laughing and yelled.

Come here!

Linda would not let go of my hand.

Please.

I begged him but he said to my daughters.

Mami is coming to help us. She will come back again.

At least he was not cruel to the children. Many were.

And he forced me to go with him, dragged me really, away from my crying screaming children. Someone near me reached to help the children.

Mami, Mami.

There were many woman chosen and all of us were directed toward different  places in the forest. One of the men knocked me down and ripped at my clothes, opened his and start raping me.  As I tried to resist, he hit me in the face and filled my bleeding mouth with oak leafs so I couldn’t scream.  He was so beastly.  As he beat me he called me horrible disgusting name. After he finished raping me, he called the other man over, who was watching and he raped me as well. After, I just lay there on the wet ground, muddy and covered with small sticks and leaves with my upper clothes torn completely away. I tried to cover myself with hands.  Then, they told me that I could go back to the other people.

When I returned stumbling toward the group, I saw their faces register horror, disbelief and disgust. I turned away. I felt filthy all the way through my bones and completely humiliated.  My daughters were crying and when they saw me they ran to hug me. Everyone was looking at me. An older woman gave me her jacket to cover myself.

After some hours the enemy let us move.

It was already dark when we arrived in a unfamiliar small town. We were so tired, just a small group of twenty people all woman and children.  We decided to stay in one of the kindergarten schools.  There were beds and blankets there for the children’s naps, so we stayed the night. I cleaned myself as best I could – there was running water — but I would not feel fully clean for a very long time and I was completely numb. I couldn’t even cry.

My mind was beyond control and just wanted to replay the act of mud, rape, oak leafs and the beatings which went on for years – the memory came to life for years, something would happen and it all rushed back — I was there lying in the forest being raped and injured.

In the morning at the kindergarten, one family offered to take me and my children in their old paint faded farm truck. It was blue, I think.  I looked away from the whole trip but expressed gratitude as we traveled to Albania to a refugee camp where my daughters and I stayed with thousands of others until the end of the war.

Immediately after the war, I came back home transported from Albania with many others. We were told we were free and safe. My home was not destroyed, but my soul was — I felt dirty, humiliated and very far away from free and safe. I could not speak. The entire neighborhood knew what had happened to me, and it seemed that every one of them was pointing a finger toward me. I did not want to go out. I hid in my house with my children.

Eventually, I changed neighborhoods. I went to live in my sister’s house.  During the war she went as a refugee to live in Norway. So, I could use her house.  She sent me money as she could so I could survive with Emma and Linda. I lived a very isolated life and I didn’t go out from the house for months.

I didn’t want to see the light of the sun, me, who used to love life now it seemed that my life had ended.  Really.  Sometimes when I did go out from necessity, food and all I felt the people I saw were talking about me, every one of them was talking about me — every glance toward me was another bullet in a wound that never healed. I had forgotten how to behave as a mother, sister or friend. I forgot how it was to take and give a smile. I had simply forgotten how it was to live. I was dead among the living.

After fourteen years of this numb dead life, things began to change when I was encouraged by someone I knew to call for assistance in a rehabilitation center for women. After that, I started exposure therapy and the light at the end of tunnel began to shine and call me to leave that dark muddy place, to take the oak leafs from my mouth and speak. As I spoke, nothing horrible happened and the memory that lives began to drain of self-loathing and I began to feel safe and supported. I began to reclaim my life. I could once again see grass and blossoms and sky.  I could smile and say hello to people without shame as that old world in shades of black faded into color and I became a real mother again. I could be with my children in play and joy. It was the best feeling I ever had.  I was a dead person brought back to life where breathe could move in my chest and my eyes could open again to the bright world around me.

Today I work as a house keeper and have a very quiet life with my two daughters. I am so proud of them. Emma is studying education in college.  Linda is still in high school.  I rent a flat that I can pay for by myself. What a wonderful feeling to be able to depend only on myself. I am so grateful that I’m alive again really try to enjoy every second of my life.

I worked very hard in therapy ( she had prolonged exposure therapy).  I didn’t want my past to destroy my present and my future.  And even more important, I didn’t want my past to destroy my children’s future.  They deserve more.

Today I don’t see myself as a victim, but as a survivor — I survived my trauma. This does not mean that I’ve forgotten what I have experienced, that will never happen. I will never forget but I realized that life must go on. And it has.

Now I walk with pride replacing the shame I felt for so many years and I do not isolate myself.  Who should be ashamed and isolated are those men who committed the crime.

Someday, I want to hear that my abusers will pay for what they did, not just to me but all the surviving 20,000 other woman who were raped and tortured in my country.

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Teuta: Escape and Return

  By Kosova

In this piece,  Besire, a trauma psychotherapist/psychologist in Pristina, Kosovo interviews and makes a few comments for context.  She herself was a refugee who survived very difficult times.  She wanted the women’s stories to break through the walls of her office into the world and did the women. here must s be pointed out that stories are given with the consent of clients.  These stories need to be held, cradled and the women celebrated for their courage, their strength and their love.  

Teuta’s Story

Kosova201541I just want people to know what we experienced and what we still deal with!  I’m the lucky woman, because my husband knows what happened to me, accepted that, and try to be supportive at maximum, but there are thousands of woman that can’t talk about their experience, they suffer in silence. Alone. In my village there are a lot of woman who were raped and never dare to talk or seek treatment, because if they speak they can be excluded from the family, abused, made into prostitutes and remain homeless. Speaking about what happened can bring terrible things.  There is humiliation,  fear, shame, guilt and anger!

I would like people to not judge us, not stigmatize us, to see as like a normal women.

We didn’t choose to be raped or tortured, they choose us. With what we could protect our self?

It was very easy to be man in the war time, because they took the weapons and fight in mountain, or some just hiding in mountains, but we were unprotected, without weapons, we fought for our children and ourselves with our bodies.

***************

In the summer of 1998, my life changed forever. As was usual for our summer vacation, my husband, myself and our two children came from Germany where we have lived for several years to our home of origin in Kosovo. I was pregnant with our third child.  We planned to stay a month with our families as we normally did and then return to Germany where my husband worked in construction and I was caretaker for his boss’s two children. We had a nice life.

A few years earlier, my husband had finished the army in Croatia so he was an experienced military man.  The war between the Serbian and Albanian Kosovars had begun in earnest in January 1998.  Our army people came to our house and asked my husband to join KLA — Kosovo Liberation Army. It was a request he  couldn’t refuse — these were our people — so my husband joined. I didn’t go back to Germany but remained in our birthplace with my mother-in-law in her home while my husband went into the mountains with KLA.

War had been going on for six months and everywhere was heard shots.

People stayed at home all the time, only in the cases when we absolutely needed something from town or to visit doctor did we go out. I was scared, mostly because i was pregnant and the children were so young, 4 and 2 years old.  I heard that other people in some villages were already left their homes to go the mountains where they felt safer – they were afraid to walk on the roads because the enemy soldiers would harm them, rape or kill them.  I was sure that very soon we would have to do this as well.

Days went by, months went by and my husband could not come home because he could be captured by the enemy forces and killed automatically. Time for birth was approaching. I couldn’t decide if I should go to the hospital or give birth at home.

In hospital were working just Serbian doctors and nurses, I heard cases that  they kill Albanian babies and tortured the mothers, so I decided to give birth at home with the help of my mother in law.

In January 1999, she arrived; I gave birth to my third child.  Only three weeks after bringing into life my daughter, the enemy came to our house and we were forced to leave.

The village was surrounded by military and paramilitary forces and we escaped to the mountains. We all knew that when the enemy came into the village or neighborhood they burned houses, maltreated/abused or raped women and killed men and sometimes boys.

Together with my mother in law and other fellow villagers, we spent many days there in cold weather and without any food. We were unprepared to leave the houses.  We took what we could: some bags with food, mostly bread but that was not enough for staying long. We created plastic pavilions (tents)  to  sleep but it was snowing and extremely cold. Everywhere you could hear children crying. The children were sleeping in their clothes and boots and the babies got severe rashes.

Besire: During the time when the civilian population stayed in the mountains, they used fire, and diapers often washed with water only, we had no soap or sometimes the ashes of the fire that was more efficient for fading.  The enemy saw the fires and knew where we were. 

The small baby I kept all the time at the breast in order to keep her warm and trying to feed.  But I didn’t have milk enough because I didn’t eat, saving bread, our primary food by now, for children. My mother in law was taking care for other two children most of the time.

But enemy forces didn’t even allow us to stay in the mountains they gathered hundreds of people who they had forced to leave their houses and in big crowds we were forced to move from one village to another.  

Men were sent in an unknown direction, while all women were gathered in the school yard of the village and times to times the Serbian army chose some of the most beautiful women, sent them inside the school or behind the school where they would sexually abuse them. In this collection I was chosen together with 7 other women and sent by 3 paramilitary behind the school and they forced us to take our clothes away.

My one month baby was crying all the time as my mother-in-law held her on the other side of the building and this was bothering one of the paramilitaries, so he took my  mother in law who was holding the baby and brought  her behind the school where we were naked.

I remember when He asked: “Whose is this child?”  All the seven women who were naked said that: “It’s mine, it’s mine.”

Teuta started crying when she reached this part of her story and remembers this moment. She cannot stop crying and she understands very well the reaction of each woman, because all of them wanted to escape from the clutches of those “savages” as she calls them. 

After calming herself she continues her story. 

But then my mother in law shows who the real mother of the baby is and I survived from the rape this time. While leaving the group I always am sorry when I remember that had to put on clothes of another woman due to the fact that I was in a hurry to escape and i couldn’t find mine.  But our suffering did not end because after some hours, after they raped a lot of young women they forced us to go on the road with the long line of people walking or some with truck and moving from one village to another.  I was extremely tired , because I didn’t eat nothing for days .I keep all the time the baby in my arms but she was not  was  not moving anymore   because I couldn’t breastfeed her, I thought she was dead –died of starvation.  I thought that the baby was dead, and for a moment I was thinking, maybe is better because she will not suffer any more!

I was numb, i even couldn’t cry.  I decided to leave the baby near the road while we were walking, but a young Serbian solder nearby felt compassion for me, it seemed. He  tried to say something in his language but i could not understand, then he start doing like a dog, which i understood that  he was saying  to take the baby and  bury somewhere  because the dogs might eat her, so I started crying and  took  baby Flaka up again my arms. I kissed her like I wanted to apologize to her why I wanted to leave her there — I was so sure that she was delufta-e-kosovesad.

Besire: From the stories of Teuta, I understood in general, the Serbian regular army, rarely mistreated civilians, they were fighting with KLA.  It was the paramilitary groups that did all the terrorizing and murdering.   

Affected by this, I continued on the road with the long line of people, and only a few minutes later a shell from a tank exploded in the middle of the line of trucks and people, causing many deaths and injuries.  Immediately after, the paramilitary forces were killing the injured people.  They did it coldly with no apparent feeling; meanwhile the others were forced to continue the trip moving around dead or dying people.

The shell noise was so great that my ears were closed and couldn’t hear anything, but I felt very warm and very strange.

There was blood.  I didn’t know I was hit at first…shrapnel struck me in the left breast and also hit the baby. Flaka started to move from the pain and in that moment I understood she had been hit in the nose and that she was still alive.

Seeing that enemy forces were killing all the wounded people I approached my mother in law and told her what was happening to me. When she saw me and baby, she was terrified.  I could see it and  she told  me, ssh,  be quiet, bear the pain   and not  scream  because she was fearful that they will kill me as they killed also many other wounded persons.  Mother-in-law helped to stop the blood with her handkerchief, and we continue the path in the long line of people, but over the days, my wound started being infected causing fever. Also, I tried to clean baby wound but she was not moving again. She was half dead!

After one day of 12 hours of hiking, we were sent to a cooperative, a building for agricultural issues, where the paramilitary forces selected me and other 120 beautiful women, took us inside the cooperative where we were systematically violated. I was with temperature and fever, because of the wound but this didn’t stop them raping me.  While my mother-in-law with many others and their children remained outside of the building and she somehow manages to send a message to my father which was enrolled in KLA and happened to be in hiding nearby.

We women were inside the cooperative but the paramilitary didn’t stay all the time inside, they mostly came around 19.00 o’clock.

My father analyzed very well the situation and after many attempts he manages to sneak through the roof and we escaped with the help of the women who remained behind.

During the day the paramilitary stayed in front of the building, drinking coke and singing so I analyzed good the situation and escaped from behind the building and he took me from the cooperative and took me to the closest headquarters, to take medical treatment for the wound.  I told him I had to go back. He begged me not to go to the cooperative again, but I had to because we were numbered/counted every night and if one of us was missing, the enemy said that they would kill 10 women for every one escaped.

So I had to turn back, because they were like my sisters, and I could not bear the feeling of guilt of any of them would be murdered because of me –  all of them helped me to  escape when my father come for me.

As soon as I was back inside the building,  the paramilitary forces came to  violate, and rape, one if the Serbian paramilitary noticed bandage on my bosom and understood  that I had escaped for treatment  was treated, and he brutally beats me and breaks my ankle bone with his boots.

It is still not right, all these years later she cannot walk for long periods of time. 

It was not just violating us, it was that at night after all day being raped, we try to rest, they come in and urinate on us.  Taking careful time.

After several consecutive days of sexual violence in this building, some of the women were released while several others were taken by the Serb forces and later on after the war they were found dead in different wells around the area. That’s what they did.  Poison the wells with our own bodies.

Teuta was among the freed women.   She returned to her children and mother in law and then was joined by her husband later on, who explained the entire situation to him.  Her husband was one of the very supportive ones, there were fewer of those kinds of men and he still continues to support her maximally. He kept her from suicide several times.  She, after all these difficulties,  experienced many health problems including depression  and other symptoms of PTSD, migraine and other physical problems including hypertension for which she ( and the other women) have no money for medicine.  She is still undergoing prolonged exposure  psychotherapy. 

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Besire: How were the holidays for you before the war and now?  

Oh there is a huge difference. The best holiday for me was Bajram holiday. I remember the time when i was unmarried, we couldn’t wait for Bajram, and we were preparing for weeks. I lived in a big village and with a lot of cousins and sisters. We were 7 sisters and all of us had flair for singing with tambourine. So before and during holiday we went house by house to all villages, singing and dancing, especially we went to the houses when were new brides. The new brides wore the best clothes they had and we sing tothem. Now everything is different, everything is so empty.

Today we celebrate just one day of Bajram, and you don’t see joy in peoples face , neither to children, they are not happy anymore. We just say to each other “happy Holiday and that’s it, we don’t sing and dance any more like used to do, even when we smile to each other it seems to me is a fake smile. After the war things changed, it seems that the war ended but took our joy and happiness! Every holiday reminds us of who is not there and how many we don’t know what happened to them.

Besire: What is the best thing that can happen for you?

The worst thing for me now, is to see my daughter with the nose deformed from the grenade.  She is already fifteen, an excellent student and it happens  many times, she comes home  from school crying, because other children call her ” tomato nose” I pray good one day she will have the opportunity to operate her nose and to feel like other children.  That is the best that can happen to me!

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Journey of Survivors: Sexual Violence in War

  By Kosova, Sexual Violence

Eliminating Sexual Violence in War, was the summit held in London on June 10th, 2014. This Summit welcomed over 900 experts, NGOs, survivors, faith leaders, and international organizations from more than 140 countries.  It was the biggest global meeting on this issue ever convened.

According to Amnesty International, rape is now used deliberately as a military strategy… by the spread of AIDS, and by eliminating cultural and religious traditions.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague co-chaired the summit with Angelina Jolie. He said rape was one of the “great mass crimes” of modern times and called on the nations at the summit to write action against sexual violence into their armies.

Ashlar associate, Selvije Izeti made this presentation:

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Some expressions of survivors of sexual violence in Kosova:

              “People are afraid from hell , I do not fear that I live with that hell every day“

              “They wounded our soul, but people stepped upon our wounds“

              “It might have been better if I’ve jointed the battlefield than to experience the war upon my body” 

             “There is no life for me anymore“

             “They don’t recognize us as victims of war, but as victims of shame“

             “How I wish to sleep quietly for a single  day and see a beautiful dream” 

            “They wounded our soul, but people stepped upon our wounds“

             “I’m not alone, I’m never alone …. shame, pain and suffering are my inseparable company” 

As many of you know, 15 year ago women of  Kosovo have been part of the tragedy inflicted by war in my country.  Always when it comes to sexual violence and rape camps in the Balkans, Bosnia is just mentioned. For Kosovo always is said that there might have been violation.  But in fact it is believed that sexual violation involved about 20 thousand Albanian women in Kosovo, and perpetrators of these crimes have gone unpunished and remain still free.

We all know that throughout history, sexual violence has been used as a weapon of war. Rape is used because it is easily hidden and hits the most vulnerable people, woman and children leaving lasting consequences not only in the individual but also in the family society and whole generations.  Because the effects last a lifetime for survivors of sexual violence it is a war crime in times of war and in times of peace, so peace that we others found in freedom they unfortunately do not yet enjoy.

I work  with the survivors of sexual violence for years, and every time I meet them, I see  the  signs  of  their  suffering  and  their  inhumane  treatment during and after the war. During the war they experienced serious physical and psychological injuries.  It was easy for them to ask help for physical injuries, but the invisible wounds they keep in silent because they know that if they speak will face social consequences like: stigma, humiliation, blaming,  expulsion from home or abandonment by husbands, Divorce. Men have refused to marry girls who have been victims of rape.  Family tends to isolate women who have experienced rape. This has made women, even after 15 years, to choose suffering in silence.

Fifteen years of silence have multiplied wounds, have multiplied the pain facing constant fear, sadness, anger, self-blaming, and shame; Anxiety disorders –PTSD, Depression, somatic complaints, suicidal thoughts, numbness, isolation from family, friends and relatives, loss of attention etc. Even it considered to be 20,000 survivors of sexual violence, just 100 of woman come forward to ask for counseling in services of KRCT, which is one of the main NGO-s that that work directly with the survivors of sexual violence.  Of those, nearly 80 hid their husbands about the rape and continue, to hide the secret out of fear of abandonment or abuse. 

To help victims of sexual violence to recover and rebuild their live they first of all must be treated with respect  humanity, confidentiality. They need to be fully supported  not just from the NGO- s that offer psychological help, but from each member of society so that the  victims  can be offered a sense  of  normalcy, a life  different from what the perpetrators of these  horrendous crimes  designed for them.

The last two years have been many Campaigns to raise people’s awareness and fighting stigma regarding sexual violence through emissions through various documentaries. The survivors have stated that this awareness building is also necessary for them to remove their sense of shame and to understand that they have been victims of crime, not authors.

Finally in Kosova, three months victims of sexual violence are recognized by law as a victim of war and is expected to benefit an Individual compensation in the form of monthly pension as other categories of war.  I hope that this law will be implemented soon, because getting a law onto the statute book is one thing, getting it implemented is another! For woman  must be compensation to those individuals who survived sexual violence as well as other kinds of injury, but also adequate state expenditure on health and housing, schools and jobs, so that women can participate fully in society.

Woman will not find peace till they don’t find justice – that every crime be effectively investigated, every perpetrator prosecuted, every crime punished. Therefore, I think that a key component to ending rape as a weapon of war is the successful prosecution of perpetrators.  Perpetrators need to admit responsibility and to be publicly seen as responsible for their actions

As well raising awareness on gender violence is key to long-term prevention and stopping rape in conflict. As we work towards preventing conflict-related rape, we will address the institutionalized discrimination in our society, while changing people’s mindsets towards violence and women.