Children born of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) are in an extremely bad position. Through the abyss of darkness of stigma and discrimination, in which society as a whole pushes them, they very often question their own identity, feeling guilty and ashamed of their origins.
Significance must be given to them at all times, even on the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict.
June 19th was declared the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, to which the war story of BiH is connected. Namely, during the aggression on our country, between 35 and 50 thousand women were raped.
A large number of them became pregnant, and most of them gave birth to children that the system in our country still does not recognize. However, there is an opportunity for concrete change in the Brcko District, whose system, ie politicians, isnow facing a big test.
Twenty-seven years after the end of the aggression, children born of the war are still a neglected population, whose birth carries with it life-threatening and permanent risks and damages. They are stigmatized and discriminated against by society and the legal system in which we live, and the authorities do not do much to change that.
Children born of war, during their upbringing, went through physical violence, emotional abuse, and peer violence in schools, where they were targeted as children without father or abandoned. Today, the category of victims of war is not recognized by law, and therefore, like other children of civilian victims of war, they do not enjoy any rights or benefits that would facilitate their access and financing of schooling or employment.
Politicians in the Brcko District have an opportunity for change, more precisely members of the local Assembly, who will soon be presented with the Draft Law on Civilian Victims of War, and its current shortcoming is the lack of the right to psychological support, spa treatment, and medical rehabilitation, and also the right to health care. The adoption of this law is also an opportunity to recognize the status and rights of children born ofwar for the first time in BiH, and all this is now at the will of politicians.
The organization TRIAL International is also in favor of changes to the draft law, which tells that the mentioned right, which is missing in the law, was provided by an earlier decision on the protection of civilian victims of war, from 2008, and by a later decision from 2012, it was omitted from the list of listed rights, Klix.ba writes.
E.Dz.
