The applicable rules of the international law have recently provided for the problem of sexual abuse in armed conflicts. Until the establishment of ad hoc ICTY and then ICTR, then the Special Court for Sierra Leone, these crimes made part of the unsanctioned “war” practice, with the exception of some recent case-law in the Tokyo International Military Tribunal. The war events in former Yugoslavia, especially during the international armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina will open issues of how to treat these crimes and how to provide clear legal and multidisciplinary scientific answers to these issues. Ample studies have presented facts about massive sexual abuses over the ethnic group of Bosnian Muslim women, and that was the basis for international community to start thinking about these crimes as separate crimes in the international law. Even during the first months of aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina, news reports informed the public about the extent of sex crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The American newspapers Newsday and journalist Roy Gutman were among the first ones to report about the extent of “horror of rapes in Bosnia“ . Riyaset of Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the umbrella organization for the Bosnian Muslims issued numerous public announcements, called for respect for these victims, and especially to care for the victims of unwanted pregnancy and look after their children, and warned the world about the functioning of numerous concentration camps for Muslim women . Man organizations within UN , European Union , research institutes, NGO’s and numerous researchers reported about their field studies and organized counseling and scientific conferences about these issues . Independently, the UN Commission for Human Rights in its Resolution 1992/S-1/1 of 14 August 1992 ordered a review of committed crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In their reports, the expert commission under the leadership of Tedeus Mazowiecki stated that “ethnic cleansing is not the outcome of war but its objective” and that “Muslim population was principle victims and they were literally under the threat of extermination” .
Sexual abuse of women in Bosnia and Herzegovina – instrument of the crime of genocide
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