WUNRN
Bosnia-Herzegovina:
Medica Zenica-Infoteka
Fighting
Violence Against Women in Bosnia-Herzegovina
Duska
Andric-Ruzicic says she was like many people from Bosnia-Herzegovina before the
war. "I believed that violence against women didn't exist. I thought, if
they're being abused at home, why don't they just leave?" War changed
everything for Andric-Ruzicic, not least her views on domestic violence.
"War made me what I am now. My business was destroyed and I had to start
all over again. All that I knew had been taken away; my beliefs and way of
seeing the world changed along with everything else," she says.
Andric-Ruzicic has come a long way from the businesswoman she once was. As
Director of Medica Zenica–Infoteka, a nongovernmental organization that
provides integrated support services to women in Bosnia-Herzegovina, she's
trying to change an entire country's attitudes toward domestic violence."Domestic
violence was never discussed in the media, by politicians, or anywhere else in
public," she says. "It was a secret thing that was happening behind
closed doors and victims had nowhere to go and no one to talk to. People refused
to acknowledge there was a problem. Now that's starting to change."
Part of the reason for this change is Medica Infoteka's groundbreaking efforts
to collect nationwide data on violence against women for the first time in the
country's history. "There was no doubt that violence existed, but the
problem was that we needed solid data to prove it," she says. UNIFEM
offered a solution. With a 1998 Trust Fund grant, Infoteka undertook a research
project; interviewing hundreds of local officials of all levels, combing through
the dense archives of numerous institutions, and then compiling the information
into a book.
The
result was:
To Live Without Violence, a book examining the abuse of women in
Bosnia-Herzegovina — the first of its kind. It was distributed to 200 human
rights groups and hundreds of government officials in the region.
"The findings were a justification of what we already knew,"
Andric-Ruzicic notes. "We also tried to document the more subtle forms of
violence against women psychological, economic, mental, emotional to show that
these forms are also an important part of the problem." Medica Infoteka
undertook the immensely challenging task of educating institutions and their
employees about violence against women starting with the police. Medica Infoteka
took on judges next. We asked them the same questions they ask women in
domestic violence cases, about their sex lives and other personal details, for
example. They were embarrassed and I could tell it really hit home. They were
surprisingly open to us and our message." Medica Infoteka's next targets
were lawyers, journalists, as well as other nongovernmental organizations.
"I've learned that there's really little difference between violence in
war and violence in peace — for women it's just the same," Andric-Ruzicic
says. "I'm here because I have a girl child and thinking of her keeps me
going. I happened upon Medica after the war and now I don't think I can do
anything else; I've found that I can really change things. Thousands of women
are still battling an enemy that's very close to home, and for them, the end of
the war has not brought peace. We need to continue our own battle until these
women can join the rest of our society and enjoy a life without violence."
Former businesswoman Duska Andric-Ruzicic is director of Medica
Zenica–Infoteka, a nongovernmental organization providing integrated support
services to women in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina. Text and photograph courtesy
UNIFEM, a partner and Cooperating Organization with dgCommunity Gender and Development.
================================================================
To leave the list, send your request by email to: wunrn_listserve-request@lists.wunrn.com.
Thank you.