Women Create Peace

MORE FOR HEALTH AND EDUCATION, LESS FOR ARMAMENT!


To celebrate two very important dates for the international women's movement —May 24, International Day of Women's Action for Peace and Disarmament, and May 28, International Day of Action for Women's Health—a day-long conference was held in Belgrade on May 25^th, 2002, organized by the Autonomous Women's Center against Sexual Violence and Women in Black—Belgrade.

Approximately sixty participants, hailing from twenty towns in Serbia and six towns in Montenegro, attended the conference. Despite the fact that numerous representatives of Federal and Republic political structures had been timely informed and invited to participate in this conference, only one responded: Vera Markovic, a Social Democratic deputy in the Serbian National Assembly. We believe that this low attendance is a manifestation of politicians’ underestimation of civil society in general and the important role that women's autonomous organizations play in ensuring stable democracy in Serbia in particular.

The conference consisted of two parts. The first part was a performance for peace in Republic Square entitled ‘The Story of a Demilitarized Parachute.’ During this hour-long lively feminist anti-militarist street performance, we demanded a decrease in military expenditure and the reallocation of funds to healthcare, education, and culture. We must note that the genuine military parachute used in the performance was a gift from Women in Black—Spain, given in the spirit of international solidarity and with the aspiration to globalize feminist anti-militarist values.

In the afternoon session, a panel discussion entitled ‘We are in Charge of our Bodies—We are in Charge of our Money’ was held in the Center for Cultural Decontamination.

In her short introductory address, Stasa Zajovic explained the interconnectedness of the two dates and the relation between health and peace:

• Health is not only the absence of disease, but a balance in biological, mental, spiritual and social conditions in which women live. Health is a political issue and one’s health is affected by one’s sex, race and class. In this country, health has become a commodity and is no longer a basic human right; "those who have more money are healthier;"
• Peace is not only the absence of war. In this country, we do not live in peace, but in a no-war state, in an omnipresent atmosphere of fear of poverty and illness, amid a discourse of hatred with frequent fascist incidents and clerical and nationalist tendencies that particularly degrade women.
• The goal of the conference was to expose these tendencies and to create political alliances of solidarity. We aimed to strengthen civil society and to assume responsibility, as well as to influence the power centers that make decisions on behalf of all citizens.
• After that, there was a minute of silence to commemorate May 25^th, 1995, when Serb armed forces committed one of their endless series of crimes, the murder of more than seventy civilians, predominantly children and youths, in Tuzla.

Next, the panel participants made short introductory talks about related issues.
Excerpts from these talks follow:

THE STATE’S RESPONSIBILITY FOR WOMEN'S HEALTH (Stanislava Otasevic, Belgrade):

• Psychological, social and economic integrity enables women to overcome the traditional patriarchal roles of mothers and nurses;
• Women's health cannot be defined solely as reproductive health because this reduces women to perpetuators of the species or the nation;
• Women need to be healthy not only to preserve their physical integrity. It is only when women are healthy that they can take control over their own lives and have a wider range of options;
• Health is gendered. Male violence affects health. Domestic violence and war affect health. Women's activism in the area of healthcare should increase. There should be changes made to the social plan, with the aim of creating better conditions for women.

Dragana Niksic, (Kraljevo): The international Day of Action for Women's Health has been celebrated since 1987, following the Women's Global Network Conference on Reproductive Rights. Dragana spoke of the political character of the women's health movement, which aims to create conditions in which women will make independent decisions regarding their reproductive capacity and sexuality.

THE FEMINIST APPROACH TO DEMOGRAPHIC POLICY (Stasa Zajovic, Belgrade):

• The control of women’s reproductive capacity (birth control) is one of the pillars of patriarchal control over women;
•
Her talk included a brief survey on the evolution of population policy to the present. Population policy has targeted ethnically Serb women. It called for ‘the mobilization of mothers’ and ‘saving’ the nation from the so-called ‘white plague’ of slow population growth. In Serbia in the early 1990's, this was part of the psychological preparations for war. It created ethnic divisions among women. Later, this discourse turned into war-mongering propaganda ( urging women to ‘patriotically bear sons’);
• Population policy as a system of measures that encourage or restricts child-bearing (pro-reproductive or anti-reproductive measures) to serve the needs of a state, nation, class, or race is misogynous, racist and aggressive. Its opposite is population policies in which reproductive rights include women’s right to make independent decisions about having or not having children and women’s right to legal abortion and safe contraception - in brief, the right of women to make their own choice;
• The Law on Financial Support for Families that was passed in April 2002 attacks women's freedom by reducing women's identity to the role of mothers, advocating child-bearing for the needs of the state and nation (by introducing administrative measures designed to increase the birthrate) and encourages intolerance towards ethnic minorities with higher birthrates, specifically Albanians, Romany and Bosniaks.

THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH, PATRIARCHY AND WAR (Jelka Imsirovic, Belgrade):

• The intensified interference of the Serbian Orthodox Church with state policy created the preconditions for war. These preconditions included the synergy of ethnic and clerical nationalism, the ritual of transporting King Lazar's relics, the unearthing of bones from mass graves from World War II, Slobodan Milosevic's war cry on June 28th 1989, in the presence of Patriarch German. All of this led to the war and the disintegration of Yugoslavia;
• The Serbian Orthodox church advocated an ethnically cleansed state. It was said that, "the Serbs cannot live in any other independent state, for they are a God's people and have to live in their homeland, Serbia, with all other Serbs;"
• The Serbian Orthodox Church talks exclusively about the threatened Serbian people. For the Serb regime, the war was just. The church also believes it was just. Patriarch Pavle once said, "if there is a war in Heaven, there is also war here;”
• The Serbian Orthodox Church justified the wars, but ignored crimes;
• The Serbian Orthodox Church called 'upon women to bear children for the salvation of the nation.’ Church leaders told Serb women to bear children to show their patriotism, like ‘the mother of the nine Jugovic brothers;’
• Following the regime change on October 5^th, the Serbian Orthodox Church made further inroads into public life and entered state institutions;
• Religious teaching that preaches the inequality of the sexes and glorifying the works of Nikolaj Velimirovic was introduced into primary and secondary schools;
• The Serbian Orthodox church calls upon women to bear children for the salvation of the nation, condemning abortion as infanticide.

THE ISLAMIC COMMUNITY AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS (Zibija D. Sarenkapic, NOVI PAZAR):

• According to present-day Islamic teachings, women are excluded from public life, despite the fact that they enjoyed greater rights in the 13th and 14th centuries;
• The leading figures in Islam believe that women's rights and reproductive rights in general are a bad Western influence and “the reason why our women do not want to bear children, although it is a healthy thing to do;”
• The leading figures in the Islamic community instill fears in women that restrict their right to choice. All religious communities seem to have reached consensus on this issue;
• The religious communities are using many tactics to increase their political influence. They interfere with state affairs and violate the basic constitutional principle of the separation of church and state:

THE MONTENEGRIN ORTHODOX CHURCH AND ABORTION (Ljiljana Tatic, Kolasin):

• The Montenegrin Orthodox Church is against abortion and calls upon doctors not to perform them. "Each doctor should act like a priest," church leaders say.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND ABORTION (Svenka Savic, Novi Sad):

• The Catholic Church in Serbia, like other denominations, supports patriarchy and condemns all kinds of abortion. The church states that life begins at the moment of conception and calls abortion murder.
• Autonomous women's groups ought to support inter-religious dialogue and ecumenical initiatives.

In the second part of the conference, the results of surveys on abortion, conducted by activists from Vranje, Leskovac, Vlasotince, Kotor, Cetinje, Herzeg Novi, Bijela and Tutin were presented.

The unrepresentative, but indicative, sample of 274 respondents from various parts of Serbia and Montenegro showed that 34% of women think that each woman alone should decide about whether to have an abortion. 48% of respondents thought that the woman and man involved should make the decision together. One percent of the sample thought that the decision should be made by the father alone. This data indicates that women’s regard for their own autonomy is low. Only one third of women think that they are entitled to independent decisions regarding their reproductive capacity, which includes making decisions about their own lives and sexuality. When asked if abortion is an evil act, 53% of the respondents answered affirmatively, while only 26% disagreed. This leads to the conclusion that the current clerical nationalist tendencies generate (and probably intensify) women’s feelings of guilt. Women’s feelings of guilt have always been one of the strongest pillars of patriarchal control over women.

It should be noted that abortion was legalized in Yugoslavia in 1952. In Yugoslavia, this is the principal method of contraception, used by women irrespective of their age, education, and social, economic and marital status.

When asked whether they think abortion is murder, 35% of the respondents said abortion is murder from the moment of conception, whereas 30% of the respondents believe that abortion is murder from the moment the fetus becomes viable. Just 32% of the respondents do not think that abortion is murder. The first result directly reveals the influence of religious propaganda.

Nada Koprivica (of the SOS Hotline in Niksic) spoke about doctors' views on abortion, expressing her fear that most of them would favor prohibiting abortion "if the media slightly altered the way the issue is framed." She concluded that doctors have a low level of knowledge about reproductive rights and that "there is only a thin line dividing present views and a total ban on abortion."

Here are some of the opinions that were expressed in the discussion that followed:
• There is widespread corruption in the healthcare sector. Laws to protect the dignity of patients and doctors and the other medical staff should be adopted. It is very important that women from the political parties join legislative initiatives aimed at protecting women's human rights. " Unfortunately, women politicians do not understand the importance of the NGO sector and they do not cooperate with NGOs, but I will try to encourage them to do so," said Vera Markovic, the only politician in attendance;

• Women account for over 50% of the electorate. They have voted for female political representatives, who should keep their constituents in mind. Otherwise, we will have to put pressure on them and make them understand the importance of civil society (Divna Stankovic, Women's Center, Leskovac);
• There is an urgent need for reform of the healthcare sector, and in particular, of preventive medicine (Jasmina Savic, Eva, Novi Sad);
• The portal of the basilica of St. Sava’s Church in Belgrade cost 400,000 dollars, while there is no money for the protection of women's and children's health (Jelka Imsirovic).

The third session was about the absence of democratic control over the armed forces. Mirna Vuksanovic, of the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights in Belgrade, emphasized the absence of cooperation between the government and the NGO sector. She illustrated the situation with an event that happened during the campaign to collect signatures for shortening compulsory military service and recognizing conscientious objection. The NGOs collected 30,000 signatures, but the initiative did not even enter parliamentary procedure. Lidija Pajovic of Nis said that FRY leads the region in military expenditures. The largest expenditure in the federal budget is the Army of Yugoslavia, while the funds directed to healthcare are the lowest in the whole region. This is another example of this state’s priorities.

Gordana Mugosa of Cetinje quoted official figures from the Montenegrin Army Budget from late in 2001. Out of the Republic’s entire budget, 11.5% is allocated to the police, 0.45% to cultural activities and 1.08% to healthcare. The allocations for primary, secondary and university education as well as for scientific research are 26.2%.

Ivana Vitas of Belgrade analyzed primary schools textbooks and preparatory tests for the secondary school entrance exams in Serbia. The Ministry of Education still publishes the same material for language and literature classes that was used during the Milosevic regime. Ivana emphasized the following:

• The passages (folktales, folk songs and short stories) used on the tests propagate discrimination against women. They legitimize violence against women. These texts blame women for the male violence they experience. These passages glorify "the omnipotent authority of the man in the Serb patriarchal family." They advocate women’s complete obedience within a patriarchal family. In short, they convey a derisive and humiliating attitude toward women;
• The quoted examples encourage patriarchy and militarism and glorifying killing and war. The texts are fraught with glorifications of sacrifice for one's fatherland and examples of heroic death and brutal heroic patriotic violence. The entire compilation propagates belligerent patriarchal ideas;
• The quoted examples reinforce prejudices, stereotypes and hatred toward other peoples, especially toward other peoples who live in the Balkans.

At the end of the conference, the participants also agreed on their upcoming joint political activities. Towards that end, they signed an appeal entitled "More for Health, and Less for Armament."

Report prepared by: Ljilja, Nada, Stasa (Women in Black)