Women and Children of Rape in Bosnia Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Women and Children of Rape in Bosnia - Essay Example If rape was not made a top priority crime, then the prosecutors would end up without any witnesses. After a protracted period of time, the victims of rape now want to lead their lives without any interference, and are not interested in the proceedings of the tribunal. They are no longer willing to testify and are of the opinion that it is highly unlikely for them to obtain justice (Bosnia Rapes Continue to Go Unpunished). A European Community’s agency stated that more than twenty thousand Bosnian Muslim women were raped or sexually assaulted by the military forces of Serbia. In this regard, a UN Commission of Experts had observed that the Bosnian Serbs had implemented a policy of systematic rape against the Bosnian Muslim women. They also committed rapes in the detention camps (Bosnia Rapes Continue to Go Unpunished). A number of people have claimed that the rapes carried out by Bosnian Serbs were part of their ethnic cleansing policy. Under this policy Muslims were to be killed and thrown out of their homes and ultimately from the nation. However, the tribunal decided not to prosecute rape as acts of genocide, and most human rights advocates disagreed with this decision of the tribunal. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda had also concluded on these lines. The tribunal must provide counseling, legal advice and relocation arrangements, such as new identities for witnesses of rape crime before, during and after the trial (Bosnia Rapes Continue to Go Unpunished). A European Community mission estimated that nearly twenty thousand Bosnian Muslim women had been raped by the troops during the war. The Health Ministry of Croatia concluded that nearly fifty percent of women, who had been accommodated in the base camps in Bosnia, had been subjected to rape. These military forces even raped children aged six years and women aged eighty years. Hundreds of women and children were assumed to have been killed after being subjected to gang rapes. There had