Active on behalf of traumatised women and girls in war and crisis zones

War always means that women are violated – which is why medica mondiale has committed itself to supporting traumatised women and girls in war and crisis zones.

Founded in 1993 by the gynaecologist Dr. Monika Hauser at a time when rape was taking place on a massive scale in Bosnia Herzegowina, medica mondiale today sees itself as an international advocate for the rights and interests of women who have survived sexual violence in war situations.

Profile

In addition to providing direct support in war and crisis zones, this international women´s organisation has for some time been providing training for professionals with psychological and/ sociological backgrounds who are involved in sensitively assisting those who have survived sexual violence ( working with trauma). medica mondiale is politically proactive on behalf of the rights of women traumatised by war and publicly denounces breaches of human rights of this nature. Furthermore, medica mondiale is constantly working on the development of scientific standards for the medical and psychotherapeutic treatment as well as the psychological, social and legal support of wormen and girls traumatised in war situations.

Projects

The therapy centre Medica Zenica has been working successfully in Central Bosnia since 1993 and since the beginning of 2004 the centre has become financially independent of medica mondiale.

In April 1999 we started another project medica mondiale Kosova: since then a therapy centre in Gjakova, Kosovo – along the lines of Medica Zenica – has been established and is growing.

As a result of our involvement with women refugees from Kosovo in the refugee camps in Albania there has emerged a further project. Since the beginning of 2000 medica mondiale is providing assistance through medica mondiale Tirana for the women traumatised and tortured for years under the Hoxha regime in Albania.

At the end of 2001 our organisation began with various projects in Afghanistan to help Afghan women.

Since March 2003 we have been working together with Wadi e.V. active on behalf of women in Iraq.

Finance

medica mondiale is up to now the only organisation doing this kind of work in war zones which offers an interdisciplinary, holistic approach. One of the biggest challenges for the organisation is sustaining the longterm commitment necessary for such work. As a non-profit organisation medica mondiale needs not only one-off donations but also donors who wish to help over a longer period in supporting women and girls traumatised by war in their efforts to rebuild their lives.

Violence against women in war

The most important facts

• Sexual violence and torture of women and girls is a part of every war. For a long time this has been regarded as an inevitable „byproduct“ of war and to a lorge extent ignored. However in the past 10 years since the massive scale of rape commited in Bosnia-Herzegowina and the late rehabilitation of women forced into prostitution from the Asian-Pacific war this has been given a wider public focus.
• Sexual violence is practised by military personnel, police and paramilitaries on a massive scale in the context of conquest and annihilation (e.g. in World War II by the German Wehrmacht; in Bosnia-Herzegowina, in Ruanda), but also in times of social repression and crisis (e.g. during the Nazi period in Germany; in South Africa, in Chile, in Kosovo after 1989), at the end of war and in post-war periods (e.g. in Germany 1945 by the Allies; during humanitarian missions of the UN in Kosovo, in Cambodia, in Somalia) and during escape from war zones e.g. in Bosnia-Herzegowina).
• Violence against women is an essential structural element of the relationship between the sexes. Rape is a part of war ritual, a symbolic expression of humiliation of the male opponent and thus a „component of male communication“ (Ruth Seifert 1993). Whereby women represent the family, culture, civil life and in traditional patriarchal thinking the „property“ of the enemy. In terms of sexuality and power the extreme masculine ideal finds its most striking manifestation in the military.
• Mass rape whether in Bosnia-Herzegowina or Ruanda is functionalised and implemented as a highly effective component of an overall strategy in the expulsion and elimination of a group of people, ethnic or other minority. In principle, women´s organisations warn of the danger of instrumentalising the suffering of women for the sake of (inter)national political interests.

The active engagement of international women´s organisations has contributed to the fact that grave sexual violence is now explicitly recognised as a war crime and crime against humanity in the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). In addition, as a result of the evaluation of the UN Ad hoc Tribunal for Ruanda (CTR) and the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) a lawcourt practice inclusive of women has been formulated and laid down.