The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

The Sarajevo International Peace Centre works for human rights; it is a
cooperative effort of various groups. It supports the construction of
youth organizations, ecological programmes, solidarity and humanitarian
actions, and works for cultural education and interreligious cooperation.
The Osijek Centre for Peace, Nonviolence and Human Rights, was
founded in 1992 to build peace, protect human rights and freedom, and
develop creative methods for non-violent communication. It has orga -
nized as many local and international encounters and congresses.
The Helsinki Committees in all post-Yugoslav states fight internationally
for human rights in the region, especially for the rights of refugees and
for the documentation of war crimes.
The Humanitarian Law Centre (HLT) was founded in 1992 by the Serbian
lawyer Nataša Kandi who works to uncover the war crimes committed
by Serbian military police and paramilitary groups during the 1990s, and
to bring the perpetrators to justice. She documents human rights and
war crimes violations by the Serbian authorities, and supports the
victims and their families in court.
The Antiwar Campaign, founded in 1991, has spawned many human
rights organizations, including the Centre for Direct Protection of People,
the Centre for Woman War Victims, Delfin Pakrac, the Centre for Education,
Counselling and Research (CESI), the Pakrac Volunteer Centre,
Sunflower, and the b.a.b.e. Women’s Centre. Starting in September
1991, it published the newspaper Arkzin to counteract the effect of the
uniformized media.
The Centre for Peace Studies was founded in 1997 to unite all activities
of the anti-war campaign. One important action was the anti-war charter
in which signatures were collected on a large scale in Croatia and other
parts of former Yugoslavia in favour of living together in peace.
Today, a new generation has grown up which has little or no memory of
the pre-war and war era. At the same time, interest in researching history
has increased, with a focus on civil and political rights.
Women in Black in Belgrade was founded in 1991 with reference to the
Israeli organization of the same name, to protest against the war policy
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