Doc. 8404
6 May 1999

Situation of refugee women of Kosovo

Motion for a recommendation

presented by Ms Pozza Tasca and others

This motion has not been discussed in the Assembly and commits only the members who have signed it

1.       Considering that in the report presented by Robin Cook to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague, Albanian women are systematically being raped by the Serbian forces of Slobodan Milosevic;

2.       Considering that, according to the same report, women are taken aside and, when they are not raped on their own doorsteps, they are taken away from their families and raped at a military base in Djakovica; in a factory near Urosevac 100 women are kept constantly at the disposal of the troops; in Pec the local commander has organised a prison-brothel which militiamen and soldiers use in turn;

3.       Considering, on the basis of a survey conducted in the camps at Kukes and Blaze by the Italian Federation of Psychologists, that in the Albanian culture and tradition rape can lead to a very high percentage of suicide, as a direct consequence of the humiliation suffered and the separation of the victims from their families and the communities to which they belong;

4.       Considering that the 1949 Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilians in Time of War and its additional protocols of 1977 provide, inter alia, that women must be protected from any violation of their honour, especially in the form of rape and forced prostitution;

5.       Considering that the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action of the World Conference on Human Rights further establish that violations of the fundamental rights of women in situations of armed conflict constitute violations of the fundamental principles of international human rights and humanitarian law (chapter III, section II, para 38);

6.       Noting that strategic objective E.I. of the Action Programme adopted in Beijing on the occasion of the 4th International Women's Conference calls on governments and international and regional intergovernmental institutions to take adequate steps to protect women living in situations of armed conflict;

7.       Having regard to Resolution 1011 (1993) on the situation of women and children in the former Yugoslavia;

8.       Considering that Article 5 para 2 of the statute of the International Court of Justice classifies reducing people to slavery as a crime against humanity,

9       The Assembly therefore proposes to the Committee of Ministers that it should urge the governments of member states to adopt an emergency plan of action in favour of the women in Kosovo, comprising:

i.       the immediate institution of a co-ordination structure capable of providing the victims of rape with medical and psychological support and with adequate legal assistance;

ii.       a larger percentage of women in teams in the field, to cater more effectively for the specific needs of these women;

iii.       the sending of cultural mediators and psychologists to the refugee camps in order to help the victims to recover from the trauma of rape;

iv.       the reuniting of the women concerned with their communities of origin if they so wish;

v.       the possibility of access to a job and to vocational training in the long term for these women, in order to provide them with new occupational outlets.

Signed : ¹

Pozza Tasca, Italy, LDR

Cryer, United Kingdom, SOC

Dayanıklı, Turkey, SOC

Dromberg, Finland, EDG

Etherington, United Kingdom SOC

Freyberg, Poland, SOC

J. Jones, United Kingdom, SOC

Karlsson, Austria, SOC

Neuwirth, France, EDG

Poptodorova, Bulgaria, SOC

Pulgar, Spain, EPP/CD

Roudy, France, SOC

Stanoiu, Romania, SOC

Vermot-Mangold, Switzerland, SOC

¹        SOC: Socialist Group

      EPP/CD: Group of the European People’s Party

      EDG: European Democratic Group

      LDR : Liberal, Democratic and Reformers’ Group

      UEL: Group of the Unified European Left

      NR: not registered in a group