The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

of the Serbian government, and founded centres for deserters and war
victims.
The Rosa Women’s Centre in Zagreb runs a hotline for women and
victims of human trafficking, and a women’s safe house. In order to
strengthen the discourse around human rights as an alternative to the
hitherto dominant patriarchal stereotypes, encounter projects such as
seminars and conferences are carried out with women from various
parts of the region.
Feminist movements and resistance against the war
The transformation of Yugoslavia from the socialist to the capitalist system
and from a federal union to an almost ethnically homogenous state
has raised the question of ethnic and also gender identity. Women were
subject to extreme acts of violence during the war, including torture,
rape and murder; 80% of the refugees were women and children. At
the same time, they were forced to assume greater responsibilities for
their families and society, since the men were at the front or in prison.
The broad societal obsession with identity, stoked by propaganda, led
to the formation of many new women’s, feminist and humanitarian
groups, even in the vicinity of the nationalist parties.
At the same time, parts of the feminist movement from all parts of Yugoslavia
were determined to create a common anti-war movement.
They demanded respect for universal human rights, regardless of ethnic
or other affiliation. That led to serious confrontations; they were attacked
by those women’s organizations which were close to the official political
system, particularly for their cooperation with organizations from the
“enemy” parts of the country. Even the demand for respect for human
rights regardless of national and religious affiliation was proclaimed to
be a hostile act, as treason, and as “placing the aggressors and the victims
on the same level”. At international meetings, there was no unity regard -
ing the debates over the question of whether rape in war should be seen
as “part of the ethnic strategy” or as “a crime against women on the
enemy side”. The women’s movement split and polarized itself even
further.
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