The findings of the research, which was published last week, revealed that half of the 900 sexual abuse cases that the Kosovo Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims (KRCT) has documented were committed in what it called “rape houses,” where women were temporarily held to be assaulted, and that in 621 cases, they were sexually abused by more than one perpetrator.
“The data from the documentation is intended to serve all institutional and non-institutional mechanisms, as well as the survivors themselves. The data is public in the form of statistics and it can be used for access to justice,” Fatmire Haliti, project coordinator at KRCT, said.
In 2018, after new legislation was adopted, the Kosovo authorities began receiving applications for the status of survivor of wartime sexual violence, which not only bestows official recognition of a victim’s suffering, but also makes them eligible for benefits such as monthly payments of 230 euros.
Since it started work, the government’s Commission to Recognize and Verify Survivors of Sexual Violence during the war has received more than 1,200 applications, and while 900 of the applicants have been granted, more than 200 applications have been rejected.
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