WILLIAMS: These women are preparing to face the past a time when their lives were gripped by war. For Mevla, its a day to confront painful memories.
MEVLA: Im doing this for justice, my son, to find out what happened to our people.
WILLIAMS: Theyre travelling back through the valleys they once called home, deep into what they now regard as enemy territory.Theyre Bosnian Muslims - returning to Serb-held Bosnia. A decade ago they were victims of a terrible crime -- they were inmates in Serbian rape camps.
Music
WILLIAMS: Today, the pain of the war years is carried on by a new generation.
Children of Street: Hundreds perhaps thousands were conceived in the camps, where Serb soldiers used rape as a weapon of ethnic cleansing.
Such are the social taboos that many children born of rape remain unaware of their origins. Now approaching their teenage years, the inevitable questions are being asked -- its a social time bomb.
GEGIC: Well see war again unless this society and this community recognises and accepts that these children live here among us.
Music
WILLIAMS: The women have been threatened - warned not to turn up; a single Serbian police car their only protection.But theyre determined - the groups leader, Bakira Hasecic, steels the troubled Mevla for the moment shell face her kidnapper in court.
BAKIRA: Just tell the truth. Dont say anything that isnt true and dont let the lawyer provoke you. Tell them Ive made my statement, this is how it was, and I stand by it.
WILLIAMS: Mevlas trauma runs especially deep; she was not alone when Serbs raped her.
MEVLA: Its hard for me because Ive had my husband taken away and been raped in front of the three children I gave birth to. I cant ever forget any of it, nor can my children. And thats the hardest thing for me.
WILLIAMS: When they arrive, the authorities are meant to protect them but here in Serb held Bosnia the accused has friends even among the police.
The women will not stay in this town they would rather endure an eight hour round trip than stay here a single night.
Despite their fears, the women step forward to seek punishment for the men who destroyed their lives.
BAKIRA: Sometimes it bothers me when somebody congratulates us for our bravery. We dont want people to pity us; rather we walk with our heads held high. All that we ask is that truth and justice prevail.
WILLIAMS: Today theyre getting that wish. For Mevla, its the first time shes seen her captor since she escaped.
This time hes the one who is trapped and although hes handcuffed, its still hard for her to sit here surrounded by Serbs.MEVLA: I didnt feel good -- I got the shivers,
my heart was pounding, my legs were shaking Look my legs are trembling!
And just now, when the policeman with the gun followed us out I couldnt see Bakira or you and I thought He could shoot us in the back.
Thats what was going through my head.
WILLIAMS: This is the first time Muslim women have come to a court in the Serbian dominated part of their country to bear witness against their attacker. For them its the first step on the long road to some form of justice. But many other women are still living in the shadow of the sexual violence used against them.
Music
WILLIAMS: Tens of thousands of women shared Mevlas fate.
Estimates of the number of babies born as a result of these rapes are harder to come by. They range from a few hundred to more than five thousand no one really knows.
Music
WILLIAMS: All Bosnians suffered the horror of war. In the 1990s more than 200,000 people died when the former Yugoslavia collapsed in a series of bitter conflicts.
The longest and bloodiest was the Bosnian war in which Serbs, Muslims and Croats fought each other to a standstill. War crimes were committed on all sides, but one of the most horrific was the systematic rape of Muslim women by Serbs.
Music
WILLIAMS: Edhem Godinjak was the Bosnian police chief in charge of prisoner exchanges.
GODINJAK: Put simply, the biologically destroyed a population, a nation. In other words, they committed genocide.
At the time, during the war, the war criminals themselves said that when they finished having sex they didnt permit abortions.
They said, You wont abort; you must give birth to Serb children.
WILLIAMS: During the war, Edhem took thousands of testimonies that convinced him rape was being used deliberately as a weapon of ethnic cleansing.
GODINJAK: It was a planned action. They were locked up in brothels and concentration camps where they said they were raped, so theyd give birth to Serbs. So it was planned. They held them until they were heavily pregnant and then they released them. So her lifes at stake if she wants to bring her suffering to an end.
WILLIAMS: Mevla was one of those imprisoned, deliberately held long into pregnancy.
By the time she managed to reach a hospital to demand an abortion, she was eight months pregnant.
MEVLA: I went there twice. Eventually I told the doctor Id rather walk through the mine field and die rather than have the baby. I spent three hours on the operating table. I was in such agony that all the doctors and nurses wept with me.
WILLIAMS: All the women here were raped repeatedly.
Bakira has helped them form a group to seek compensation as victims of war and testify at the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal.
BAKIRA: Many women gave birth and many left their children. Hundreds aborted.
They didnt want to see that child or know anything about it. Because when they see it, or hear it cry, they know its the fruit of rape, of the suffering theyve been through.
WILLIAMS: Scores of raped women came to the Bosnian city of Zenica seeking refuge during the war.
Marijanna Senjak still runs the centre which supports those who had rape babies when they were still in their teens.
MARIJANNA: They were young girls mainly.
They were close to delivery so they still they have resistance towards the child in their body, and they didnt accept the fact that they are pregnant. Very often they were telling like: I dont feel that I am pregnant and that I have. it I dont think about this. They deny this fact.
Music
WILLIAMS: Night falls over Sarajevo, covering the scars of war.
Its Ramadan in this mostly Muslim city, and sunset signals its time to break the daily fast and to pray.
Music
WILLIAMS: During the war, Islamic religious leaders tried to protect Bosnias rape victims.They told their communities such women should be supported, their children embraced.
MARIJANNA: First is that woman who survive war rape is not guilty, that she is like a shahid [witness], like a hero who is killed on Gods road. So she is at the level of heroine.
And that child born out of rape is born from a side of Muslim and will be member of Islamic and Muslim community, will be considered as a Muslim child, and up bring as a Muslim child. So it helps a lot in Bosnian community.
WILLIAMS: But in Muslim Bosnia some still blame them for being raped many of the women live in shame.
GODINJA: When they reached freedom they were faced with another trauma. On top of being raped, they faced social censure.
Its in our peoples mentality to blame the woman for letting a rape happen, or for giving birth to Serb children.
WILLIAMS: While Serbs used rape systematically, soldiers on all sides committed crimes.
Jasmina became pregnant after being raped by a Croatian soldier.
JASMINA: When I first learned I was pregnant all I could think about was of getting rid of the child -- I felt such hatred for it. I even considered suicide. I thought all sorts of things. I considered taking a knife and ripping my stomach open. And then the first time I was examined the doctor told me it was a little girl. Maybe thats the only reason I decided to keep the child.
In fact, it was the only reason I kept it, because it was a little girl.
WILLIAMS: Going through with her pregnancy brought Jasmina more pain.
JASMINA: When she was little she used to come and ask me, Mum whats a bastard? Why do they call me a bastard? Why am I a bastard? Why isnt my friend? Why me?
WILLIAMS: She loves her daughter, but there are moments when the past comes rushing back.
Music
JASMINA: Her face, some of her facial expressions, remind me of him.
And then I want to hit her. Somehow I let the moment pass, I have a cigarette or go out for a few minutes. Its just a few seconds.
Music
WILLIAMS: All the rape mothers are troubled by this question of what to tell their children, and when?
JASMINA: Shes very close to me and there are no secrets between us.
But Ive never told her about her past. Year by year I grow more afraid to hurt her if she learns somehow. When the time comes Ill need psychological support because I dont know what reaction shell have.
MARIJANNA: In the majority of cases they are telling their children that their fathers were killed in the war. They do not want to expose their children; they dont want that their children has a feeling that they are different from other children.
We advise them to tell the children when the children will be mature enough to bear the fact.
WILLIAMS: Some fear their childs rejection when they finally tell them the truth.
JASMINA: Im afraid of how she will react when she finds out.
Im preparing by making sure we have a close relationship, so that she trusts me and above all that she loves me. Perhaps then shell be able to forgive me.
Music WILLIAMS: The risk of them being told by strangers increases once they reach school age,
and thats what happened to Alun now 13.
FATHER: We were in the car and he said, Dad someone told me that you didnt give birth to me that I'm not your child. That my birth mother threw me in a big rubbish bin. They said all sorts of things to him.
Music
WILLIAMS: Alun has lived with this adoptive family since being abandoned at birth. His Dad has told him what he could about his birth mother.
FATHER: He knows that she was raped by a Serbian soldier.
But we dont know who she was, nor exactly what happened to her. We know she was captured and raped. Ive told him what I know. I told him the truth how she gave birth at the Gorazde hospital and left him there two hours later. I was working there at the time, when she gave birth. She didnt even breast feed him she ran off as soon as she recovered.
WILLIAMS: So is Alun still curious? Does he want to find his mother?
ALUN: Well for now I dont have to and in fact I never will. Ive got parents, so I dont really think about that.
WILLIAMS: Aluns life has been made into a film -- its director Semsudin Gegic wanting to break the subjects taboo.
GEGIC: Ive spoken with mothers who abandoned their children.
But not a single one said shed definitely given up her child. At the time she decided as she did, and the community needs to know. My film is a warning and a cry of anguish so that this will never happen again.
Music
WILLIAMS: Gegic believes all orphans born in Bosnia during the war are tarred with the suspicion they are part Serbian. He fears Bosnian societys failure to accept them could sow the seeds of another war.
GEGIC: If the government doesnt acknowledge these children well have another conflict in the next 10 or 20 years.
Music
WILLIAMS: Alun is clearly close to his adoptive father. Already bright and inquisitive - the love Alun receives has given him confidence, even in his difference.
ALUN: I feel that Im both on the one side and the other.
But I think that Im more on the Muslim side, that Im a Muslim.
WILLIAMS: Ten years after the war, Bosnians are still in denial about these children - and many of their rapist fathers are walking free.
GEGIC: And thats why we need a law that says these children exist. These things happened and those who did them must face court and go to jail.
And those who have accepted the children must be supported.
WILLIAMS: These children have great potential, but as they mature their search for identity will create some difficult days ahead.
Reporter: Evan Williams
Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen
Camera: Ron Ekkel
Producer: Dina Volaric
MEVLA: Im doing this for justice, my son, to find out what happened to our people.
WILLIAMS: Theyre travelling back through the valleys they once called home, deep into what they now regard as enemy territory.Theyre Bosnian Muslims - returning to Serb-held Bosnia. A decade ago they were victims of a terrible crime -- they were inmates in Serbian rape camps.
Music
WILLIAMS: Today, the pain of the war years is carried on by a new generation.
Children of Street: Hundreds perhaps thousands were conceived in the camps, where Serb soldiers used rape as a weapon of ethnic cleansing.
Such are the social taboos that many children born of rape remain unaware of their origins. Now approaching their teenage years, the inevitable questions are being asked -- its a social time bomb.
GEGIC: Well see war again unless this society and this community recognises and accepts that these children live here among us.
Music
WILLIAMS: The women have been threatened - warned not to turn up; a single Serbian police car their only protection.But theyre determined - the groups leader, Bakira Hasecic, steels the troubled Mevla for the moment shell face her kidnapper in court.
BAKIRA: Just tell the truth. Dont say anything that isnt true and dont let the lawyer provoke you. Tell them Ive made my statement, this is how it was, and I stand by it.
WILLIAMS: Mevlas trauma runs especially deep; she was not alone when Serbs raped her.
MEVLA: Its hard for me because Ive had my husband taken away and been raped in front of the three children I gave birth to. I cant ever forget any of it, nor can my children. And thats the hardest thing for me.
WILLIAMS: When they arrive, the authorities are meant to protect them but here in Serb held Bosnia the accused has friends even among the police.
The women will not stay in this town they would rather endure an eight hour round trip than stay here a single night.
Despite their fears, the women step forward to seek punishment for the men who destroyed their lives.
BAKIRA: Sometimes it bothers me when somebody congratulates us for our bravery. We dont want people to pity us; rather we walk with our heads held high. All that we ask is that truth and justice prevail.
WILLIAMS: Today theyre getting that wish. For Mevla, its the first time shes seen her captor since she escaped.
This time hes the one who is trapped and although hes handcuffed, its still hard for her to sit here surrounded by Serbs.MEVLA: I didnt feel good -- I got the shivers,
my heart was pounding, my legs were shaking Look my legs are trembling!
And just now, when the policeman with the gun followed us out I couldnt see Bakira or you and I thought He could shoot us in the back.
Thats what was going through my head.
WILLIAMS: This is the first time Muslim women have come to a court in the Serbian dominated part of their country to bear witness against their attacker. For them its the first step on the long road to some form of justice. But many other women are still living in the shadow of the sexual violence used against them.
Music
WILLIAMS: Tens of thousands of women shared Mevlas fate.
Estimates of the number of babies born as a result of these rapes are harder to come by. They range from a few hundred to more than five thousand no one really knows.
Music
WILLIAMS: All Bosnians suffered the horror of war. In the 1990s more than 200,000 people died when the former Yugoslavia collapsed in a series of bitter conflicts.
The longest and bloodiest was the Bosnian war in which Serbs, Muslims and Croats fought each other to a standstill. War crimes were committed on all sides, but one of the most horrific was the systematic rape of Muslim women by Serbs.
Music
WILLIAMS: Edhem Godinjak was the Bosnian police chief in charge of prisoner exchanges.
GODINJAK: Put simply, the biologically destroyed a population, a nation. In other words, they committed genocide.
At the time, during the war, the war criminals themselves said that when they finished having sex they didnt permit abortions.
They said, You wont abort; you must give birth to Serb children.
WILLIAMS: During the war, Edhem took thousands of testimonies that convinced him rape was being used deliberately as a weapon of ethnic cleansing.
GODINJAK: It was a planned action. They were locked up in brothels and concentration camps where they said they were raped, so theyd give birth to Serbs. So it was planned. They held them until they were heavily pregnant and then they released them. So her lifes at stake if she wants to bring her suffering to an end.
WILLIAMS: Mevla was one of those imprisoned, deliberately held long into pregnancy.
By the time she managed to reach a hospital to demand an abortion, she was eight months pregnant.
MEVLA: I went there twice. Eventually I told the doctor Id rather walk through the mine field and die rather than have the baby. I spent three hours on the operating table. I was in such agony that all the doctors and nurses wept with me.
WILLIAMS: All the women here were raped repeatedly.
Bakira has helped them form a group to seek compensation as victims of war and testify at the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal.
BAKIRA: Many women gave birth and many left their children. Hundreds aborted.
They didnt want to see that child or know anything about it. Because when they see it, or hear it cry, they know its the fruit of rape, of the suffering theyve been through.
WILLIAMS: Scores of raped women came to the Bosnian city of Zenica seeking refuge during the war.
Marijanna Senjak still runs the centre which supports those who had rape babies when they were still in their teens.
MARIJANNA: They were young girls mainly.
They were close to delivery so they still they have resistance towards the child in their body, and they didnt accept the fact that they are pregnant. Very often they were telling like: I dont feel that I am pregnant and that I have. it I dont think about this. They deny this fact.
Music
WILLIAMS: Night falls over Sarajevo, covering the scars of war.
Its Ramadan in this mostly Muslim city, and sunset signals its time to break the daily fast and to pray.
Music
WILLIAMS: During the war, Islamic religious leaders tried to protect Bosnias rape victims.They told their communities such women should be supported, their children embraced.
MARIJANNA: First is that woman who survive war rape is not guilty, that she is like a shahid [witness], like a hero who is killed on Gods road. So she is at the level of heroine.
And that child born out of rape is born from a side of Muslim and will be member of Islamic and Muslim community, will be considered as a Muslim child, and up bring as a Muslim child. So it helps a lot in Bosnian community.
WILLIAMS: But in Muslim Bosnia some still blame them for being raped many of the women live in shame.
GODINJA: When they reached freedom they were faced with another trauma. On top of being raped, they faced social censure.
Its in our peoples mentality to blame the woman for letting a rape happen, or for giving birth to Serb children.
WILLIAMS: While Serbs used rape systematically, soldiers on all sides committed crimes.
Jasmina became pregnant after being raped by a Croatian soldier.
JASMINA: When I first learned I was pregnant all I could think about was of getting rid of the child -- I felt such hatred for it. I even considered suicide. I thought all sorts of things. I considered taking a knife and ripping my stomach open. And then the first time I was examined the doctor told me it was a little girl. Maybe thats the only reason I decided to keep the child.
In fact, it was the only reason I kept it, because it was a little girl.
WILLIAMS: Going through with her pregnancy brought Jasmina more pain.
JASMINA: When she was little she used to come and ask me, Mum whats a bastard? Why do they call me a bastard? Why am I a bastard? Why isnt my friend? Why me?
WILLIAMS: She loves her daughter, but there are moments when the past comes rushing back.
Music
JASMINA: Her face, some of her facial expressions, remind me of him.
And then I want to hit her. Somehow I let the moment pass, I have a cigarette or go out for a few minutes. Its just a few seconds.
Music
WILLIAMS: All the rape mothers are troubled by this question of what to tell their children, and when?
JASMINA: Shes very close to me and there are no secrets between us.
But Ive never told her about her past. Year by year I grow more afraid to hurt her if she learns somehow. When the time comes Ill need psychological support because I dont know what reaction shell have.
MARIJANNA: In the majority of cases they are telling their children that their fathers were killed in the war. They do not want to expose their children; they dont want that their children has a feeling that they are different from other children.
We advise them to tell the children when the children will be mature enough to bear the fact.
WILLIAMS: Some fear their childs rejection when they finally tell them the truth.
JASMINA: Im afraid of how she will react when she finds out.
Im preparing by making sure we have a close relationship, so that she trusts me and above all that she loves me. Perhaps then shell be able to forgive me.
Music WILLIAMS: The risk of them being told by strangers increases once they reach school age,
and thats what happened to Alun now 13.
FATHER: We were in the car and he said, Dad someone told me that you didnt give birth to me that I'm not your child. That my birth mother threw me in a big rubbish bin. They said all sorts of things to him.
Music
WILLIAMS: Alun has lived with this adoptive family since being abandoned at birth. His Dad has told him what he could about his birth mother.
FATHER: He knows that she was raped by a Serbian soldier.
But we dont know who she was, nor exactly what happened to her. We know she was captured and raped. Ive told him what I know. I told him the truth how she gave birth at the Gorazde hospital and left him there two hours later. I was working there at the time, when she gave birth. She didnt even breast feed him she ran off as soon as she recovered.
WILLIAMS: So is Alun still curious? Does he want to find his mother?
ALUN: Well for now I dont have to and in fact I never will. Ive got parents, so I dont really think about that.
WILLIAMS: Aluns life has been made into a film -- its director Semsudin Gegic wanting to break the subjects taboo.
GEGIC: Ive spoken with mothers who abandoned their children.
But not a single one said shed definitely given up her child. At the time she decided as she did, and the community needs to know. My film is a warning and a cry of anguish so that this will never happen again.
Music
WILLIAMS: Gegic believes all orphans born in Bosnia during the war are tarred with the suspicion they are part Serbian. He fears Bosnian societys failure to accept them could sow the seeds of another war.
GEGIC: If the government doesnt acknowledge these children well have another conflict in the next 10 or 20 years.
Music
WILLIAMS: Alun is clearly close to his adoptive father. Already bright and inquisitive - the love Alun receives has given him confidence, even in his difference.
ALUN: I feel that Im both on the one side and the other.
But I think that Im more on the Muslim side, that Im a Muslim.
WILLIAMS: Ten years after the war, Bosnians are still in denial about these children - and many of their rapist fathers are walking free.
GEGIC: And thats why we need a law that says these children exist. These things happened and those who did them must face court and go to jail.
And those who have accepted the children must be supported.
WILLIAMS: These children have great potential, but as they mature their search for identity will create some difficult days ahead.
Reporter: Evan Williams
Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen
Camera: Ron Ekkel
Producer: Dina Volaric