In regard to the stigma, we have moved along, starting from 2011, and have been considering the taboo topic that has been kept since the end of the war, since 1999. It was a turning point not only for our institution but for the survivors, themselves, back in 2011, specifically back in 2014 when I established the National Council for Survivors of Sexual Violence, which enabled me to bring it through the same decision-making tables, the Government of Kosovo, the Parliament of Kosovo, international organizations present in Kosovo, the diplomatic corps, civil society and the media. Immediately, one month after the work of the council, the law was proposed to recognize their legal status as civilian victims of war. At the same time, we have initiated all of the institutional and civil society mechanisms in place in order to address it, starting from their rehabilitation, reintegration and resocialization.
But I will speak with the voice of a survivor of sexual violence. Every time, sir, that I asked a survivor of sexual violence what else we can do as the institutions of Kosovo, despite their legal status, besides their medical services, besides their economic empowerment, do you know what was their continued demand? “We just want justice. We want to see whoever has done this to us face justice. This is the only peace we will get for our hearts and minds.”
They will not get the necessary peace before we start to effectively deal with this culture of impunity and before seeing the perpetrators face justice. But we will not be able to do that before we have the co-operation of the neighbouring country of Serbia. One of the basic rights of international relations is to co-operate with justice, and they have not done that so far, for the past 20 years.