Engl 135 Advanced Composition

Running subject field RAPE VICTIMS IN KOSOVO DURING WAR cocker Victims in Kosovo during War Manjola Cuka ENGL 135 advance Composition Catherine Davis April 20, 2009 DeVry University, We all be conscious(predicate) of the suffering that contend brings in stacks sees. War means losing e very(prenominal)thing you reign dear. War means losing your childhood home, contend means losing your husband, wife, child, br otherwise(a), and sister. During the contend in Kosovo on that point were a fleck of brutal chipions performed towards the Kosovo macrocosm physically and franticly.The Serbs knew exactly what these pile requireed the nearly in their conk bring outs. That is honor. Among other untamed and degrading acts executed towards the Kosovo people during the war, the Serbs utilize cosset as a fauna to destroy non only if the wo workforce as individuals but also their families to the outcome. According to McKinsey (1993), thither were an estimated twenty thousand females looted during the war in Kosovo. That is a long number considering that creation of Kosovo is a little over two million people. The Kosovo nation had been essay to gain their independence for almost a decade.They were only requireing for their h acests the freedom of speech, the right to send the children to schools where they bottom learn their ingest language, the freedom of media, and the freedom of lifespan in their deliver country with aside fear. This is their country and they were only asking for what was theirs. According to the U. S enunciate Department proclaim (1999), the Serbs started an ethnic cleaning c adenylic acidaign that was meant to remove all the non Serb population push through of the country. The most disconsolate acts towards these people started to thrum worse by and by NATO phalanx bombed the Serb military points on March 24, 1999.Serbs immovable to punish the people by forcing them proscribed of their homes, burning their houses, torturing them, raping them, and killing them. botch was the main weapon utilise against the Kosovo women to hale and weaken the entire population. Shenon (1999), reports on these grue round activities that were taking place in Kosovo The departments report tell that refugee accounts suggested that Serbian forces had executed more(prenominal) than 4,000 Kosovars, and that surveillance photographs motorn either by sa utterites or airplanes had identified seven alike(p)ly sites of mass graves.The report said that blows of Albanian women were universeness reported in increase numbers, with systematic mass enraptures app arently carried out in the cities of Djakovica and Pec. To understand the consequences that dishonor has in the lives of the Kosovo people, we make water to understand how they are increase and the beliefs that are engraved in them end-to-end the years. The people of Kosovo value family and country more than their own lives. The youth gi rls are raised(a) to believe that their role in the realism is to pee-pee married, birth children, and take do by of the chores or so the house.thither is a distinguished dissimilarity the way these people lived their lives. Men were the excoriation winners and women were there to raise the children and take administer of the house. If there was male company in the house, the females would only serve them and go to their dwell until the company left. One of Dr. Alakija (2000) reports explains how a squad up of males was greeted only by Kosovo males, and when a team of females went to investigate they were greeted by females. It is non catch for strange males to discuss with the Kosovo females even to get their testimony.A nonher important part of these peoples lives is marriage. Dating outside marriage is out(p) in their culture and the girl should non lose their virginity until she gets married. The girls that had pre marital relationships are called speculative fo r any man to marry. So subsequently knowing these events we substructure only imagine, what break means to these people. The women lose their purity aft(prenominal) being touched(p) by a nonher(prenominal) man even though it is not their fault. No man would come blind drunk to them for the rest of their lives. They would live the rest of their eld hating themselves and privation they were wild.The Kosovo women were screw up and bedevilmentd consistently in front of their loved maven(a)s destroy them physically and emotionally for the rest of their lives. There are statements of pregnant women who were rape and vanquish by either gunpoint or by being tortured. The physical hurting these women endured stool never be compared with the emotional and mental damage they went through. There is not a bigger confusion than being looted in front of your father, your mother, your brother, your uncle, and your children. How can mortal be the alike(p) after going through something like that?These women were raped in front of their children, no matter what age. It is atrocious and infuriating at the same time how these individuals would put children and mothers in these barbaric situations. One of the many rape victims explained how powerless she was when being held down by dual individuals while another was raping her. This is how she describes her torment I could not resist, I could not clamber against them, the witness, a woman identified as N. S. , testified. I could not resist because the others were retention me while my children were watching (Sullivan, 2000).Another horrific fact during the war was that the Serbs raped these women with the intention to draw them pregnant. There are two reasons the Serbs smash upd the Kosovo women whizz was to dishonor them and their families for life and second unrivaled to increase the Serb population with their children. According to BBC intelligence operation (2000), only the month of January of 2000, there were unmatched hundred rape babies born. That is a large number for this small community. How were these women able to live every day knowing that inside(a) them was the child of the enemy.The enemy that killed their man, the enemy that kicked them out of their own homes, the enemy that raped them in front of their loved ones. As twain (2001), noted The term genocidal rape is twain emotionally and politically loaded, but is does be to accurately reflect the realities felt by some if not all raped women in the conflict. As we saw above, some raped Muslim women reported that their attackers claimed that they were intending to impregnate them to create Serbian babies, and that some women were held cloaked for a period of weeks to ensure that they did not abort the child they had conceived in rape (p. 4). Honor is the most valuable law in the Kosovo society. Serbs knew they would humiliate and degrade not only the Kosovo women but their families and their loved ones. subsequently being raped these women would never speak of the ordeal they went through and would hide it from everyone if they could. These women would sort of be dead accordingly part their torment with someone else especially if it was someone they did not know. They would rather keep the anguish to themselves if that was an option. It was not enough they suffered rom the torture that was used against them, but they had to live in fear of losing everything they held dear even though this was not their fault. The raped Kosovo women would not ploughshare these ordeals with their own families for the fear of bringing rape to their entire family. The husband would leave the wife if they found out she was raped. Here is one ex vitamin Ale of a husband that suspects his young wife was raped Mr. Thaqi says his wife, who did not want her name published, denies the rape because she doesnt dare tell that kind of bill. If she askted it to him, he said, I would ask for a divorce even if I had 20 children. As his wife listened, reticent and abashfaced, in a corner of their mindless home, looted of all furniture and possessions by the Serbs, Mr. Thaqi added I dont hate her, but the story is before my eyes. I feel very cold toward her. Kissing her, he said, is like kissing a dead frame (Bumiller, 1999). It is not hard enough that they were raped and humiliated but they puzzle to live with the chagrin for the rest of their lives. Most of these women cast out themselves in their parents homes until they die either by choice or they are forced.It is heartbreaking how the community and their families expect them to commit suicide for something that was not their fault. Serbs knew that by raping the women they would destroy their families. What other method could be better then destroy a country to its core? These women live the rest of their lives excluded from the outside forgiving being wishing they were dead. The husbands live the rest of their live s wishing their wives were dead. Their parents live their lives wishing their daughter was dead. In the Kosovo culture rape carries a very strong social taboo and shame keeps victims silent.The women and men of Kosovo are not as afraid of death as they are of rape. enthrall is a deeply sensitive subject in ethnic Albanian Kosovo, a Muslim and largely traditional society, where a sexual assault can permanently stigmatize a woman, shaming her family and rail at her marriage or prospects of marriage. Gathering first-hand accounts of rape has proved very challenging for war crimes investigators, and the scale of sexual assaults here whitethorn never be fully know (Finn, 1999). They cannot tolerate the thought of their women being touched by another man.This degrading act not only humiliates the women but it demoralizes the men that are rouseing in the mountains. That was one of the biggest war strategies the Serbs used to defeat the Kosovo people. And this was one more reason the women keep the rape secret. They want their husbands, their fathers, and their brothers to fight for their country kind of of carrying the family shame in their shoulders. The world came in concert to attend the rape victims with everything they needed. The biggest issue the add-on organizationswere facingwas the non cooperation from the victims and their families.Under no circumstances they would admit they were raped unless there were witnesses to testify to that. plain then it would be very difficult to treat these patients. Knowing the consequences of admitting they were raped, what mother would adventure losing her children to get medical treatment? How can they put their own well being before their children? They considered themselves dead anyway. They would rather live in pain for the rest of their lives with their children around them, then medically treated and have lost their families.They would shut down and most of the time they would deny they were raped. There are a large number of cases that are not officially reported as we have seen in assorted reports Rape There are numerous accounts indicating that the make and individual rape of Kosovar Albanian women by Serbian forces was widespread. For example, Serbian forces systematically raped women in Djakovica and Pec, and in some cases move up women and took them to hotels where they were raped by phalanx under encouragement of their commanders.Rape is most believably an underreported atrocity because of the stigma attached to the victims in traditional Kosovar Albanian society (U. S State Department Report, 1999) It is unthinkable in some cultures to comprehend how these families treat the rape victims, particularly these women that were forced into these acts and had no other choice. Instead of embracing them and try to help them get through these tough times, they hold in them in the streets and also blame them for the shame they bring to the family. There is no kindness for the rape d victims.What can be worse than having your own parents, the ones that gave you life, the ones that raised and nurtured you, wish you were dead? These rape victims find their way out by shutting down or by going in the mountains and wed the man in the fight for their freedom. They have no life next to their own family. They choose to leave and fight to get away from the staring eyes of their neighbors and everyone else that gets in contact with them. The biggest reason is to take their humiliation with them and spare their family the shame and embarrassment.Here are the language of a father of a rape victim I have precondition her to the KLA so she can do to the Serbs what they have done to us, Haxhi Lokaj said of his daughter, who has been sent to fight with the rebels of the Kosovo Liberation Army. She will probably be killed, but that would be for the best, the 40-year-old father said with more resignation than sorrow. She would have no future anyway after what they did to he r he continued (Williams, 1999). There are different approaches the enemy uses to destroy a population to the core in the time of war.Serbs used the most degrading act to ruin the Kosovo families for life. That was rape. Death does not come termination to the pain and the outcome that rape brings in these peoples lives. If the women and men died protecting their country, fighting for their rights, or protecting themselves from being abused, they would be praised. In contrary if the women were raped but survived, for no fault of their own, they were the humiliation of their family and the whole community. clemency for the rape victims does not exist.It will take a long time and a few generations for these people to start living a full life. It will not be easy for these memories to be erased from their minds. References Alakija, P (2000). The ravages of war. Retrieved April 21, 2009 from http//www. cmaj. ca/cgi/content/full/163/9/1148 BBC News. (2000). Women scarred by Kosovo atroc ities. Retrieved April 17, 2009 from http//news. bbc. co. uk/2/hi/europe/716701. stmBooth, K (2001). The Kosovo tragedy the human rights dimensions. (1st Ed. ) Oxford Routledge, member of the Taylor & Francis Group.Retrieved April 15, 2009 from http//books. google. com/books? id=777jPodhCYYC&dq=The+Kosovo+tragedy+the+human+rights+dimensions. &printsec=frontcover& start=bn&hl=en&ei=8HLuSaSYMYuqtgeEgMHMDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4Bumiller, E. (1999). Crisis in the Balkans Crimes Deny Rape or Be Hated Kosovo Victims Choice. Retrieved April 15, 2009 from http//www. nytimes. com/1999/06/22/world/crisis-in-the-balkans-crimes-deny-rape-or-be-hated-kosovo-victims-choice. hypertext mark-up language? n=Top/Reference/ propagation%20Topics/Subjec