I am 26 years old and I am ready to invest three times as much time in the fight for a more positive and fair future for all the children born as a result of war, head of the 'Forgotten Children of War' association Ajna Jusic said Monday at the UN, on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
Ajna was born out of rape during the 1992-1995 conflict in Bosnia. At the time of the rape, her mother was 22, and she gave birth to Ajna in September of 1993. She was raped by a Serb soldier.
“Immediately after the war, the people and women were left to fend for themselves. (…) Very soon, we had information that some 50,000 Bosnian girls, women and men were rape victims. There was no systematic response. It was all about the numbers, all the shame was left for the survivors to cope with. The shame remained with the people who are actively discriminated against even today, but only because they have never had the opportunity to learn and accept a different way of coping with the situation,” Jusic said, speaking at the UN.
Because of the discrimination in the society and no response from State authorities, Ajna's mother decided to keep the truth from her until she was 15 years old.
While speaking to her mother, Ajna promised she would make the world a better place, and that is why she spoke at the UN.
The ‘Forgotten Children of War’ association created a model for work with children born out of rape, and is the first association to push for a common law on children born this way in Bosnia's both Federation and Republika Srpska entities.
“We spent years waiting for someone to remember us, wondering why our mothers continue to suffer because of the system and society, knowing that they didn't deserve it after everything they went through. My mother's heroism is immeasurable, her fight for me was unbelievable then as it is today. She fought for a child who was stripped of her fundamental right, a true knowledge of her origin, a child who does not know and will never know what family relationships mean, a child who has no idea of her genetic predispositions, and a child born with a heart condition, a child deprived of its identity,” Jusic said.
She said that she was fighting today so that the children born out of war could “claim” their rights, so they could be educated normally, that no child would ever have to explain that she did not know her father's name because her mother was a survivor of war rape.
“I'm fighting and I will continue to fight for the society which will be more empathetic, for the society which will have more understanding and be more supportive for women survivors of rape, whether it was committed in war or in peace. I know I can't stop the wars, but I'm sure I can act preventively for all the vulnerable categories that are currently with us and who, unfortunately, will be born in some new wars, “Jusic added.
