darkness has fallen and it's still peaceful and have remained so for your sakes my grandchildren after i moved. to berlin our family and us store still member 6th on d.w. . the war in bosnia ended almost 24 years ago but for some the conflict lives on is a better part of everyday life. when his mother said although we're not children of love we're children of hate it took me a long time to accept that the war is the only reason i'm alive that these. children born of wartime rape a taboo topic in bosnia these children are now adults fighting against discrimination. it is important to keep the pressure on those in power so they

finally change the laws over to amy does says it was fun. but the symbolic event there's a body and i'm so but i was 15 and in high school when i found a box with all the notes from the psychologists and therapists my mother went to see that they documented every detail of the rape what happened to her injuries in that i was alone at home and read it all emerge of us and suddenly i didn't know who i was anymore my whole life just fell apart. and this time. when we meet i know usage she's 25 and studying psychology in sarajevo her mother never wanted her to know that she was conceived by rape. ever since her discovery.

i know has felt like a living legacy of the war. between 1995 so every year but was ravaged by an ethnic conflict between bosnian muslims serbs and croats . the war was characterized by ethnic cleansing mass murder and systematic militarized great. no one knows how many women were sexually assaulted. estimates range between 205-0000. up to 4000 children were born to the victims in bosnia they're called the invisible children. for many the war is history but not for i know as a child of rape she's endured stigmatization and discrimination official bosnian documents require a father's name in. the field is empty. it'll . even now after more than 20 years when ever i go to the authorities i still have to tell some guy behind the counter that my mother was raped i don't know who my

biological father is can i still apply for student aid. and do. i know he has teamed up with others in the same situation their association forgotten children of war is fighting for an end to discrimination and for equal rights they also want the government to recognize bosnia's invisible children as war victims a status that grants certain types of assistance the demand has drawn abusive comments on their facebook page. plus. my could be close to. one we are still rodents in our mothers were prostitutes it wasn't our fault. but they'd sold their bodies for a little food. comments like that to be shocked me really.

should be. many invisible children have never overcome their feelings of shame. feelings i know as mother knows well she lives 200 kilometers from sarajevo . and i went through so much with me we were all alone. the hardest thing was when someone at work would ask me who and his father was when . we were like a leaf in the wind tossed every which way by the things happening around us. until she was 7 i know lived with her mother is a b. no no woman safe house run by an aid organization sabina had a waitressing job in a cafe. that was where she met her husband. the mason took her and i know and they moved to his home village. but after the war hatred and distrust ran deep in bosnian society.

the dog. really wasn't easy here in the village and years and just unthinkable the single man would marry a woman with a child. everyone's gossip why doesn't he find himself another woman one without a child. it was divided into 2 minds when you said no one apart from news read knew the story of your birth. and wanted to keep it a secret forever. when it became known that sabina had been raped by an enemy soldier and conceived i know the family faced open hostility. to. us. and i'm going to. the hardest part was explaining to you would all those abusive terms meant. he wanted to know the definition of bastard in all those words

. in a step father knows would serve as a soldier in the war he longed for a happy family life but the usages were ostracized in the village and i now faced repeated verbal harassment. you know i have so many problems with the people here they didn't know what to make of our situation it took a long time and there was such an unending amount of arguments before they finally accepted our family and i now i finally had someone i could take care of she gave my life meaning. i brought her up center discourse i mean was fully reynosa was only schoolboys so they. i know the mother had already endured a horrific ordeal after being raped by a croatian soldier she went into denial. by the time she realized she was pregnant

it was too late for an abortion. money so he promised so someone we had a talk about i don't want to keep or i didn't even see or is a human being from the city as until now i just waited to get the birth over with to be finally rid of this thing inside me some would all go on after she was born i didn't pick her up for 3 months didn't change a single day for this lot. sometimes i still wonder if it would have been better to give her up for adoption i mean and then she wouldn't have to deal with all of this today. maybe she'd just be working somewhere as a hairdresser and her life would be simpler newton no it's not true. on what isn't a minute. far as i'm concerned life what i know would be meaningless. and it was news that created

a happy home for the victims of rape it can be challenging to lead a normal family life in. the small town of god roster is located 200 kilometers from new straits village. it's home to a hospital nurse out and move hitch and his adoptive father move him in the war island's mother was raped by numerous serbian soldiers when she came to this hospital to give birth it was under siege moved him was the custodian here. could move through to go to spend a note here she gave birth to him. the next day she just disappeared they go she left him you know. who flew to the hospital was full of war casualties at the time and it was kind of. there were hardly any normal patients will be reborn as good

only when we. moved him and other hospital employees cared for the infant. going is that serious with. slaven that you're just going to. give orders to all of them fellas. to try to save his job and it might have just been i guess conclude. that by leaving with us cotton has goods as an. island takes us home to his apartment but he doesn't want to meet his wife and child. so cool it was that on my birthday that was your best day. plus i 5 know for all of you. such. happy celebrations were only possible because more him often took the orphaned island home with him. one day i came home and had to tell my family that we would soon have to show you

by the island the because the hospital would put him up for adoption. on the phone there was a rule that kids started crying and that's how it happened we couldn't part with him so we adopted him ourselves. islands adoptive family brought him up like their own son but that didn't protect him from being singled out for verbal abuse for many he remained the son of an enemy. it's very upsetting to be called serb bastard or told you were found in a garbage bin being excluded like that was really awful for me condemn the victims not the perpetrators and they still do to this day. to the. trauma exclusion stigma discrimination. this is what the war

bequeath to the invisible children. pollin and i know that in 2017 through a study on post-war trauma together they set up their organisation forgotten children of war they've already managed to kindle unprecedented public debate in bosnia about the subject of wartime rape. of the prisoners of the business community. but. our 1st big step is getting an appraisal of the legal situation. gotten ourselves a lawyer. she's examining bosnian laws and international conventions. the children's rights convention or the human rights convention of. the other not just. one lasting problem which children of the war face is that we've lost

a fundamental human right the right to respect for private and family life. as they push for legislative reform they hope to raise awareness of their situation . and whether there's actually it's worthwhile going public and talking openly about this after all the years we suffered in enduring milieu what we know where we come from. the books that were called for so long. in bosnia herzegovina today people like alan and i know are not considered war victims . i know is working to change that with the help of lawyers because donna jackman it's a formality with wide reaching consequences the children of veterans and war invalids are entitled to housing benefits and educational grants. the children of rape victims get no such support. the mutha nicholas nubile to when the children of rape victims buy or inherit

property for example they have to pay the full tax write that more victims on the other hand get a 50 percent tax rebate. but each. dollar is trying to clarify whether bosnian law is in breach of international conventions and human rights. she's optimistic and explains why. think that the. i'm only see them have gone through the international conventions to see if bosnian law is in violation of them alive and i came across this section that states there is an ombudsman for cases like ours and all the so i looked it up in the ministry. but it turns out they don't have an ombudsman much they just never installed the position. was that the un could address that ok. yes that would be good because of our own legal assessment otherwise they won't find out about it lebanese not. question is what international conventions carry

weight in bosnia a country that depends on financial aid lawyers use them as a basis to press for reforms. to plan on the ease of the loss to me our legal assessment is probably the 1st ever on wartime rape no it's definitely the 1st ever consequence of the laws simply have to be altered to reflect what happened and to comply with international norms not a. problem the. laws were largely adopted from the federation of yugoslavia to which it belonged. bosnia-herzegovina was a stopwatch by the 1995 digna courts which ended the war and set up a power sharing government designed to represent the country's 3 major ethnic groups. it was considered a temporary solution but to this day the presidency rotates between a serb a muslim and the croats. and its frozen ethnic divisions in place.

i know wants to do her part to overcome these divisions she's unrolled at a youth academy financed by the german government it's open to possibly a muslim serbs and croats students. during the 12 month course the young people learn about political processes and civic engagement and human rights they graduate. the diploma that makes them eligible to apply for jobs with the government or human rights groups. initially i know didn't share her personal history with her fellow students but then did read her story in a media reporter now she too was engaged with the invisible children's fight for equality. that was out of the. great flick them to get a small benefit in the croat and muslim regions of bosnia that's about $300.00 euro but in the search part it's much less that's absurd the crime is the same no matter

where it happened you can't differentiate between banja luka and sarajevo you know it was sad it was a musician that i know yet another one is de plano is very reserved and she would never open up and tell you all about herself the most the dealing that some people think she's aloof even a little arrogant. but what's impressed me about her particularly after i heard her personal story is that she never makes distinctions you know pretty to those. for her all victims are equal. they are all equally traumatised. by that officials will question you and force you to tell them the whole story yeah it's a chance not the opposite the scope of what place you know it's normal for you when you're used to it but it's dreadful question why do you have to divulge the details of your mothers or deal to a total stranger every single time why. not just. here at the academy i know it isn't just learning how to fight discrimination and human rights

violations of course has also helped her overcoming as id's over meeting new people and opening up to them and you know. when she started attending the ground there was really a pleasure to see how much she's ready to work on herself and she made it great progress especially on a personal level. in terms of your relation to the group. now i now find she can speak openly about parts of her past but there are other parts she still guards a secret. to metallica for a year i know the name of the guy who raped my mother i've done research and he has another daughter and a son was. totally excited and then came out. as an only child i know always longed for siblings. though somehow your chip crosland if i just passed my brother on my sister did i look at them hoping to get about although some 25 now and i ask

myself if i've ever unknowingly crossed paths with my sibling chicago for them to simply assert that i got sent over the years my desire to meet them is grown yet i soon realize that's not possible i simply can't do that to my own mother was this and i thought that his would be devastating for her yet. maybe think of the sort of my definition because logic. i know has decided not to look for siblings or live somewhere in sarajevo. she has to find other ways to put the past behind her. the bottle and some of us a woman as i tell myself there's nothing shameful about it for men the society has taught me that i have to feel shame but i know i have nothing to be ashamed of. that's why i've turned my life around and focused on my past it's given my life

real meaning will. i know meets up with a lawyer who's done a lot in downtown syria able. they're joined by all that we set up the association with. it has 13 men. perhaps but most of stayed away because they don't want to be filmed by our cameras. the group is fighting for the same status as children of war veterans and invalids. and for the right to withhold the name of their biological father on official paperwork no questions asked for boy that's good news. i've looked at the laws in all parts of the country and everywhere public offices only require you to name one parent it doesn't matter if it's the father or mother . the. civil servants always ask for the father's name but there is no legal basis for that request to alter the fact that. we need to make this public as soon as

possible because then you can decide which name you provide you can take care of all your paperwork without mentioning your personal story optional launched an obvious to me. to show simply doesn't in my case i can provide the name of my adoptive father also both of my mother's parents did that so i have the same heritage rights as my sisters. this is the program i mean. that's great if we can choose which parent to name we're adults we can decide for ourselves which name to provide the authorities with. the group agrees to hold a news conference to publicize the mistake authorities are making. it's already discovered that together they can make a difference. was. its

graduation day for all i know and her fellow course members are mothers of beano and stepfather most would have come for the occasion. i know studied here at the academy for a year and by the end of it was able to speak openly with their classmates about her past. as this is my mother. i am i think. that is that. let's. find out. some of them ok i'm going to go listen to my i look at my mother and just see how strong she is i'm proud that she's my mother it doesn't matter to me that i was born from hatred she's enough for me and wants me to be happy as. much else i'm human it intimate enough to tell you the move on the.

title has also completed her psychology degree she's now attending the 1st international congress of child and adolescent psychotherapy in bosnia. it was organized by her friend and mentor the trauma specialist dale she conducted the 1st scientific studies on post-war trauma in bosnia and introduced i know to allen. says. this that it is common to warrants that the taboo against speaking about sexual wartime violence serves to pass the trauma like poison from one generation to the next the only remedy she says is spoken discussion. all the deaths children born of war have very painful unpleasant experiences as

they grow up these often lead to trauma related disease and psychiatric disorders on the bottom which i have posted for for example post-traumatic stress disorders depression or some to form disorders and. in addition there are complex long term consequences such as a lack of family support which can have a social and economic impact. as a researcher admiral wants to put a human face on her findings she's hoping for i know how but it's a challenge. a big problem here is also this whole blame and a culture of rape that is. still present in tradition bound boston culture where. society often think of the shoe afraid as. their off and. but not as

a matter of. severe violation of human rights has been mentoring i know over the past 2 years. her support is. for me now is the most important because. she she knows everything. and. and i don't know what to do i just call on what i am and she she she she have me every time and it's to the most beautiful. moment of the nation ship so my other mother. this is during the conference i now suddenly makes a decision she feels ready to face the audience and speak for the 1st time in public about her past this is. a drop in the of my daughter and i'd like to introduce i have a usage she has

a bachelor's in psychology and just graduated top of her class from the academy run by the german youth organization shuler health in lebanon and i hope she'll soon do her master's in psychology he. would. thank. god he does most of those i ask ourselves whether it was just us or whether there were others like us whether there were people who could sincerely say i understand you what you went through wasn't easy. i stand before you as the living proof that the damage is inflicted by war cannot be assigned to a nationality. snicker. senescent mike it rape me has nothing to do whatsoever with nationality. is a traumatic experience and that's how we should treat it thank you.

i know will fight on not just for herself but for all those who have suffered like her so that bosnians invisible children can step out of the shadows and live a life without discrimination in dignity.

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