SUPPORT FOR REFUGEES AND DISPLACED PERSONS
From 1993 to 1997, we intensively offered organized help and support to refugees located in refugee camps in the interior of Serbia. These of some of those actions:
- We distributed humanitarian aide to refugees and displaced persons thanks to the joint support of international peace and women's networks.
- “Let’s Be Creative Together”—a project of help and self-dependency for women refugees (women refugees produced artisan handcrafts as a peaceful women’s symbols which we sold through out international contacts and networks.)
- “I Remember….”—an anthology of women’s memoirs, refugees drew and wrote what they did not want to forget from the time before the war.
- “A Place in the World”—the acquisition of eyeglasses for 300 people in three refugee camps; the supply of daily and weekly newspapers and magazines with to help the occupants stay informed.
- “We Are” –theatre performances with children from the refugee camps, performed thanks to the support of Swiss directors and activists from our network.
- “We Adopt Peace—Kinship in the Distance”—a project offering help to tens of refugee families from foreign families in Italy and Switzerland.
- “Lone Wolf”—a photo workshop in the refugee camp where children were trained in photography, preparing for a career as a photographer.
In this period help for invalid was organized—civilian victims of the war, especially from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Krajina, etc.
From 1997 to today we have offered temporary, in very modest size, support and help to refugees and displaced persons from Krajina and Kosovo.
SUPPORT FOR VICTIMS OF REPRESSION
This has been an integral part of the group’s work from the beginning. In the period after the military intervention (1999) and also in 2000, we devoted particular care to observing the trials for the victims of political repression, ethnic cleansing, and discrimination of the regime of the time. This monitoring of citizen trials, of Albanian as well as Serbian nationals, occurred in many cities in Serbia. We attended almost all these trials. Through our presence and reporting to the international public about the repression of citizens of Albanian and Serbian nationality, we extended concrete support to victims of terror, political dissenters, and opponents of the regime. That regime was replaced on October 5, 2000. However, cultural violence, nationalism, militarism, organized crime did not disappear from our surroundings. Therefore, we continued to witness the trials for war crimes which took place in Belgrade.
INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY - SUPPORTIVE ACTIONS
From the beginning of the work of Women in Black, we have dedicated a lot of attention to international solidarity, whether through independently begun and organized actions of solidarity and support or though joining the calls of other international organizations and networks, above all those with which we permanently collaborate and actively participate:
International Network of Women’s Solidarity Against War/International Network of Women in Black
Women in Black in Belgrade together with other organizations in the network permanently organize actions which express support for the efforts of women’s antimilitarist organizations, condemn war and violence in all parts of the world.
The majority of actions are expressions of support:
- Against the occupations of Palestine and the Middle East
- Against violence and war in Colombia
War Resisters’ International (WRI)
These actions are connected to conscientious objection and antimilitarism.
The latest action was a protest directed at the Turkish ambassador, in which was given to him a letter of protest regarding the unrecognized right to conscientious objection, torture in custody, and the jail sentence of the Turkish conscientious objector Mehmet Tarhan.
This action, with WRI, is also supported by Connection e.V., an organization that helps deserters and conscientious objectors over the entire world, and with which Women in Black has cooperated for a long time.
Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR)
International Fellowship for Reconciliation (IFOR) and Peace Bureau International (PBI)
Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML)
These actions are expressions of our protest against all kinds of fundamentalism and our solidarity with all victims of that practice.
- Non-violent Peace Force, etc
Women in Black also takes part of the actions of Amnesty International, which express protest against all kinds of violations of human rights, persecution, torture, etc.
