Bosnian Wartime Sexual Violence Victims Offer Help to Ukraine

Irina Andreeva. Photo: Facebook page of project “Assisto”

Irina Andreeva, director of the Kyiv-based Andreev Foundation, told Detektor in an interview that hearing about the experiences of wartime sexual violence victims from Bosnia, as well as the insights of experts who have helped them, has proved highly important for victims of similar crimes in Ukraine.

Andreeva said that although psychologists who are currently helping sexual violence victims in Ukraine during Russia’s ongoing invasion have previous experience in dealing with people affected by domestic violence, working with victims of wartime sexual violence is more demanding.

“Bosnia and Herzegovina has a sad but very important experience – how to give a person hope for life, how to teach a person to cope with fear and shame, which victims very often feel. When we just started our project, we only had a
theoretical idea of how to work with this type of people,” Andreeva explained. She said that this is the reason why it is important to know how women were helped in Bosnia and Herzegovina during and after the war.

Midheta Kaloper of the Foca 92-95 Association of War Victims, who went through a similar experience more than 30 years ago, said that many women’s organisations from Bosnia and Herzegovina took part in a training session in Moldova for volunteers who are preparing to work on giving psychological support to women, girls, men and boys who had fled Ukraine.

Kaloper said it was important to send a message to victims that they were not alone and explain to them that they were capable of coping with their traumas. It was also important to tell them that they had to start collecting evidence against the perpetrators, she added.

“That’s the first level of bringing about justice. Psychological support and the legal battle cannot exist without each other. Those things must go hand in hand. You must empower a woman – when you empower her, she will then fight for her rights,” Kaloper said.

Andreeva said that despite the similarities in the victims’ traumatic experiences, she has observed differences between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Ukraine.

“During the visit to your country, we talked to various organisations. I remember one phrase – a raped woman in Bosnia and Herzegovina knew her rapist by their face, as it often was a neighbour of hers,” she said.

“In Ukraine, a woman rarely knows who committed the crime. These conquerors have come from distant parts of Russia. Our women are still afraid that the occupiers will come back, because the war is continuing,” added Andreeva.

Study visit to BiH. Photo: Facebook page of project “Assisto”

Her organisation visits deoccupied villages in the Kyiv region, offering gynaecological and psychological support to victims.

Since the start of the project, they have also started working with the Ukrainian Chief Prosecutor’s Office.

“Our psychologists are part of mobile [Prosecutor’s Office] teams who visit the newly deoccupied territories in the Kherson, Donetsk and Kharkiv regions to collect evidence about war crimes. Our psychologists are preparing people who have experienced sexual violence for questioning,” she explained.

She said that so far 195 rape victims have been registered, but there are worries that the number is much higher.

Between 20,000 and 50,000 people were raped in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war, according to United Nations estimates. Kaloper said that sharing lessons from Bosnia and Herzegovina with volunteers in
Moldova was the first step.

She added that she understands that even more women from Bosnia and Herzegovina will attend the sesssios next time, and that sexual violence victims from Ukraine will come to Bosnia and Herzegovina, if it is possible, in order to get help.

Adila Suljevic, president of Suze Association for Assistance to Victims and Survivors of Wartime Sexual Violence from Brcko, who is also a member of the Global Network of Victims and Survivors to End Wartime Sexual Violence, said that they have dedicated many activities to discussing help to victims from Ukraine and they are ready to share their experiences.

“We are telling them they are not alone, we appear in the media, we teach them not to keep silent, we encourage them to speak up,” said Suljevic.

She added however that unfortunately, many women victims in Bosnia and Herzegovina still do not want to talk about their experiences of wartime sexual violence or seek justice due to the enduring stigma and discrimination.

“We fought to heal so we could communicate with people, so we could continue with our lives. Even today, we are sick women and even today, we undergo psychotherapy,” she said.

A difficult process is ahead for the victims from Ukraine, she said.

“I was taken away to be shot three times, and then there was the rape and all possible kinds of torture, and as I said a thousand times while undergoing treatment, I wished they had killed me. However, I think that God did not want us to die, but to be witnesses who would talk and open the eyes of new generations and spread hope, not hate,” Suljevic said.