A British-backed legal initiative in Bosnia has opened the way for thousands of rape victims from the conflict there to claim compensation for the first time, but has raised fresh concerns about who will pay to settle the claims.
On Monday, a former Bosnian Serb soldier was sentenced to eight years for a rape in 1993 and ordered to pay €15,000 (£10,600) to the Bosniak woman he attacked. The case and a similar landmark ruling last week marked the first time Bosnian war crimes victims had ever been awarded compensation for their suffering.
In the past, victims had been told by the state war crimes courts to seek compensation through civil cases, a prohibitively expensive and cumbersome procedure, despite provisions in Bosnian law allowing for awards via the criminal courts.
Many victims have endured more than two decades seeing their attackers remain at large with apparent impunity.
“This is an important decision which should bring some hope to the 50,000 women who experienced rape and other sexual violence during the war in Bosnia,” said Lydia Gall, a Balkan researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The ruling makes clear that Bosnian courts can decide on financial compensation for victims during criminal proceedings, which is safer and easier than doing so through separate civil claims.”
Jasminka Dzumhur, the head of the Bosnian ombudsman’s office, said: “This decision sends a clear message that a provision of the criminal law related to compensation is not a ‘dead letter’ and can be used in practice.”
In both landmark cases, the victims’ cases were pursued by a Swiss-based advocacy group, Track Impunity Always (Trial), which received a £80,000 grant from the UK’s Foreign Office for its work in Bosnia, as part of the Prevention of Sexual Violence in Conflict initiative launched by former foreign secretary William Hague and Angelina Jolie.
“This ruling is a vindication for the victims of sexual violence in Bosnia. The UK is proud to have funded support to survivors pursuing this landmark case. It is a victory for justice and a warning to perpetrators of this appalling crime: the world will not forget,” said Baroness Anelay, a foreign office minister and the UK’s special representative on the issue.
Trial hopes that last week’s judgment will encourage more victims of wartime rape to come forward.
“There are many women victims of torture and rape, and victims of war crimes in general, who want to use this opportunity and they will pursue criminal proceedings, but they will need legal aid from the state,” said Adrijana Hanusic, a Bosnian legal adviser to Trial. She added that the group was also trying to change the culture among Bosnian war crimes prosecutors so that they pursue compensation as a matter of course.
If more wartime victims come forward with claims, however, it is unclear where the funds would come from for compensation payments in cases where the perpetrators cannot or will not pay. If the Bosnian state took over the debt, it could represent an open-ended liability for an already cash-strapped country.
Madeleine Rees, the secretary general of the pressure group Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), argues that war crimes victims should receive a one-off cash payment, funded by international lenders.
“It would end the competition between the different groups, the camp survivors and torture victims and others, and would unite them,” Rees said. “Every time the welfare budget is cut, it’s survivors of violence, and particularly the women survivors of sexual violence, whose payments are slashed the most. A one-off payment would take them out of the welfare payments, which would mean they could no longer be so easily manipulated by nationalist politicians.”
Nela Porobic Isakovic, WILPF’s Bosnia coordinator, said that such a reparations fund would also ensure that compensation would not depend on conviction of a perpetrator.
“We should also not forget the fact that many of the survivors of wartime rape (or war crimes in general) will unfortunately not see their perpetrators being brought to justice,” Isakovic said.