16 Days of Activism campaign: Bosnia

In 1992, Bosnian Serbs, who launched a military campaign to secure coveted territory and “cleanse” Bosnia of its majority Muslim civilian population, vehemently opposed the declaration of an independent Bosnian nation with a Bosniak majority from Yugoslavia. Over 100,000 civilians (mainly Bosniaks) were killed between 1992 and 1995, and estimates of rape against the Bosniaks amount to anywhere between 20,000 and 60,000 victims.Bosnian Serb forces and Serb paramilitary groups used genocidal rape chiefly as a strategy within their plan for ethnic cleansing of the predominantly Muslim Bosniak group. The conflict was characterized by the existence of so-called “rape camps,” where women were repeatedly tortured and held until they pregnant with Serbian blood, illustrating the ethnic dimension of the rapes.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was one of the first international courts to prosecute sexual violence in conflict. Several judgments found rape to be a crime against humanity and torture and led to a conviction for the use of rape and with sexual slavery.