First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Vesna Pusić 28 May attended a conference on Sexual Violence in Conflict: Righting the Injustice, Preventing Violence in the Future, held at Zagreb’s Glyptotheque. Pusić said that war rape should be turned into a shameful act for the perpetrators and a crime which will not go unpunished. “There is no country in the world where, given the right circumstances, sexual violence and rape will not be used as an instrument of war, ethnic cleansing or subduing a nation,” Pusić said. She added that victims of sexual violence or rape in war were often made to feel as if that was their responsibility and were made to feel ashamed. “In most of the communities it is the victim who is stigmatized and that is why the fight against sexual violence in war begins in peacetime. Once the war erupts, it is too late,” said the minister.
Croatia is taking part in an initiative by British Foreign Secretary William Hague for prevention of rape as a weapon of war. “The ultimate goal of the initiative is to establish a fund for the payment of damages to rape victims worldwide. The society’s awareness that it needs to help the victims goes a long way toward stigmatizing the perpetrators, and that is perhaps the main goal,” said Pusić.
At the conference, organized by the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, addresses were delivered by President Ivo Josipović, Minister of War Veterans Predrag Matić, former UN Human Rights Rapporteur for the Balkans Elisabeth Rehn, and Ružica Barbarić, a victim of rape by the Serb paramilitary forces after the fall of Vukovar.