Translated by Beatrice Mereta
“They took us at night, one after another. There was no escape. They told us that if we screamed, they would kill us. Each time, I felt my dignity shatter, and with it, my community.”
This testimony comes from a survivor who recounts how, during the Serbian occupation, she and other Muslim women were repeatedly raped by soldiers. The violence was not random: it was systematic, planned, and aimed at destroying not only the women who suffered it, but the entire community to which they belonged.
Ethnic Rape as a Weapon of War
Ethnic rape is a form of sexual violence systematically used against individuals belonging to a specific ethnic or religious group, both women and men, with the intent to terrorise, humiliate, or destroy the community. It is neither an isolated crime nor a series of individual attacks, nor is it a side effect of armed conflict: it is a deliberate and targeted act.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has defined this crime as comprising rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancies, and other acts of sexual violence committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population. According to the United Nations, such practices constitute crimes against humanity, as they undermine the very survival of communities, generating fear, forced exile, and the breakdown of social ties.
The use of ethnic rape in armed conflicts serves specific purposes: to instil widespread terror and compel populations to flee; to undermine social cohesion by exploiting the stigma and silence that often surround sexual violence; to alter the demographic composition of a territory through forced pregnancies or disruption of family continuity; and to humiliate the enemy group, particularly women, who are regarded as custodians of the community’s culture and future.
The Case of Bosnia and Herzegovina
In 1992, following the breakup of Yugoslavia, Bosnia declared its independence. This decision was rejected by Bosnian Serb leaders who, supported by Belgrade, unleashed an ethnic war that lasted until 1995 and was characterised by sieges, massacres, and campaigns of ethnic cleansing. Bosnian Serb forces carried out targeted attacks on villages inhabited by Bosniaks (Muslims) and Croats, killing men and the elderly and deporting women, who were subsequently interned in detention camps, often set up in schools, barracks, or civilian buildings, where sexual violence was an integral part of the war strategy.
The testimonies of survivors convey the brutality of these abuses and the climate of terror in which the women lived:
“They raped me every day. They wore balaclavas and asked me if I could recognise who was on top of me.”
— Elma, taken to a rape camp while pregnant; she lost her baby as a result of the violence.
“They made me dress a woman who couldn’t move and then ordered me to go upstairs with a soldier. He insulted me and told me to undress.”
— Mirisada Tursunović, survivor of the Caparde camp
“I suffered every possible form of trauma. A rifle was pointed at me three times.”
— Adila Suljević
“In a gym in the centre of Foča, with about a hundred other women and girls, they raped us every night. They treated us like cattle, saying, ‘You, you, and you…’ and we were forced to go.”
— ‘Witness 99’, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
According to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), between 12,000 and 50,000 women were raped during the conflict in Bosnia. These were not sporadic incidents, but rather an organised policy: targeting women meant targeting the entire community, erasing its dignity and sense of belonging.
Reactions of the International Community
The brutality of ethnic rape in Bosnia did not remain hidden. For the first time, the international community was compelled to address sexual violence as a crime that was no longer incidental but central to armed conflict. As early as 1993, Amnesty International stressed that rape in war should not be regarded as a side effect, but as a deliberate weapon of ethnic persecution.
In the same year, the UN Security Council established the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), whose rulings marked a historic turning point. The 2001 Foca trial was the first in which rape was condemned not as an individual act but as a crime against humanity. The judges explicitly wrote: “Sexual violence was not random: it was used as a tool of war to terrorise and eradicate the Bosnian Muslim population.”
These rulings and United Nations reports marked a turning point: since then, ethnic rape has been recognised under international law as a war crime, a crime against humanity, and, in certain circumstances, an act of genocide.
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