CROATIA'S parliament has adopted a law granting compensation to rape victims in the 1991-95 war of independence from Yugoslavia.
The victims, whose exact number remains unknown, will receive a one-off payment of 100,000 kuna ($14,504), and a monthly allowance of 2,500 kuna. They will also be entitled to free counselling, legal and medical aid.
"Such legislation is rare in the world, and it is the first of its kind in this region whereby the victims will get a dignified one-off financial compensation," Matic War Veterans Minister Fred Matic told lawmakers last week.
The law, which takes effect from next January, was endorsed by 86 deputies while three abstained.
Croatia became independent in 1991 but then had to fight a rebel Serb minority, backed by the Yugoslav army, who opposed its independence.
In 2008, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution that said rape and other forms of sexual violence could constitute war crimes, following reports of mass rapes in Croatia's neighbour Bosnia and in Rwanda.
"This law will be a model for all other countries at war, which will have to deal with this issue and can now look up to Croatia," Marija Sliskovic, the founder of Women in the Homeland War civic group, told Reuters.
Ruzica Barbaric, a 63-year old Croatian woman who was raped after Serb troops captured the eastern town of Vukovar in November 1991, said financial compensation was welcome but not the final step.
"It will come in handy, I have a small pension. But if I got billions, it could not pay for what we went through," she told Reuters in Vukovar, a town on the Danube that has been rebuilt since the war but remains burdened by ethnic tensions.
"The law and the compensation are worth nothing if the perpetrators continue to walk free. I want them to answer for their crimes, to say why they came to Vukovar to kill and rape."
Most Serb rebels, except the top political and military leaders, have been included in a blanket amnesty Croatia declared in 1995, and many have stayed on in Vukovar.
In neighbouring Bosnia, about 20,000 women are believed to have been raped during the 1992-95 war. Those in the autonomous Bosniak-Croat Federation can get monthly payments as civilian victims of war.
In the Serb Republic, Bosnia's other half, they have to go through a lengthy legal process of proving the crime, which has discouraged most victims.
In Kosovo, another region of former Yugoslavia torn by conflict in the 1990s, parliament passed a law in 2014 that envisages benefits for the rape victims but the government has yet to define the benefits.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article