I was privileged to attend the long-awaited Women’s Court held in Sarajevo on May 7-10. Five years in the making, it took the efforts of more than a dozen women’s organizations, many of them Heart and Hand partners, that traveled around the Balkans educating women about the purposes of the court: to make public the crimes against women, to prevent the revision of history, to introduce women’s approach to justice, and to document the violence against women in the Balkans in the 1990s.
The Court looked at four kinds of violence: ethnic, militarist, gender-based, and economic.
The Court formally opened with a huge march across Sarajevo and a warm welcome from the city. People in the streets and from balconies waved and cheered us on as we made our way to the Bosnian Cultural Center, where the Court was held. Inside, the atmosphere was somber. Five hundred women from the region, Western Europe, and the US attended. Over the following four days, we heard testimony from 35 women who had been coached by a Spanish storyteller on presenting their painful stories in 15 minutes. Many women referenced that it was exactly 20 years ago that their lives changed radically.
Gut-wrenching stories of husbands and sons shot, of former neighbors and friends becoming their executioners, and the trauma of sexual assault. One woman recalled hiding in the forest for three months, another described her town without grass because starving residents had eaten all of it, and a Kosova woman, beaten and raped by neighbors, who can no longer sleep with the lights off. Another, whose husband and two sons were killed said, “I’m all alone, my relatives and grandchildren all killed. The war is over, but we all live with its consequence.”
The Women’s Court has no legal authority to punish perpetrators, but the five judges, two local activists and three international, who sat through the entire proceedings will give their verdicts on the political and civic responsibility of the perpetrators. Women in Black-Belgrade, which has coordinated the project since its inception, has published a book: Women’s Court: About the Process. http://www.zenskisud.org/en/2015.html
Attending the court was one of the most emotional and moving experiences of my life. I left feeling such compassion for the suffering these women endured and admiration for their bravery in testifying publicly in front of strangers. I also felt such gratitude to the hundreds of activists, many of whom I know, for their dedication and determination in making the Court a reality. I along with everyone who attended learned so much about the devastating effects of war that continue 20 years later.
