Montenegro: Fighting For A Better Future.
{Photo credit: Stephanie Koehler}
‘Women across Borders’ is a global awareness campaign, shedding light onto the issue of sexual violence around the world. Photographer and executive producer, Stephanie Koehler, traveled to various Balkan states in 2015 to interview female survivors of sexual violence and experts in the field. Part of the campaign is a personal message from each survivor that is captured photographically. Her findings will be published in a series of articles documenting the stories of women in each of the countries she visited.
Read her articles on Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro.
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In my quest to hear the raw and hidden truth about women’s lives around the globe, I was glad to interview a second woman from Montenegro. When I met her, Suzana and three of her five children were staying at the Women’s Safe House, a shelter I was able to connect with.
Women’s Safe House founder and president, Ljiljana Raičević, was one of the first human rights defenders in Montenegro to raise awareness of human and sex trafficking. She also founded SOS Line, a telephone crisis hotline. The Women’s Safe House (WSH), the first shelter of its kind for women and children, was then opened after it became apparent hat women calling the helpline needed additional assistance, such as a safe place to stay, legal assistance and counseling. Ljiljana successfully lobbied the Parliament of Montenegro with her work at WSH for the adoption of witness protection. In 2006, Ljiljana was the recipient of Amnesty International’s Ginetta Sagan Fund Award.
Suzana is a survivor of emotional, verbal and domestic violence. She managed to break the cycle of abuse by leaving her husband of more than two decades. She and her husband were married for 20 years without incident, she explained. Everything changed when her husband experienced workplace harassment. He changed, and so did his behavior toward her and their children. The household became a violent place with an atmosphere of fear and distrust. The children were fed lies about their mother. They lived in a constant state of anxiety about what might happen next and how their father would relate to them on any given day. There were physical assaults and a lot of verbal and emotional turmoil. Whenever the mother left the house to run errands, he stalked her or terrorized her with phone calls and mistrust. He even threatened to kill Suzana if she didn’t do what he demanded. Confrontations exploded in front of the children, and no one could ever do anything right. He told the sons that they were useless, like women, and that he had five daughters, not three sons. After several years of silence between Suzana and her husband, nothing had changed. When they could no longer bear the living situation, they left the family house.
In a patriarchal society with a terrible economic climate, many women without an education, like Suzana, never leave their perpetrators. For these reasons, her husband never imagined she would leave, but she did. Suzana needed to find work, which, according to her teenage daughter, would prove very difficult. A woman in Montenegro in her mid 40’s is considered old, and is not quite as marketable as a 20-year-old. In speaking with women who work with the SOS Line, I learned that some women do return to their abusive husbands despite the violence they endured and the possible danger they may face on going back.
Founded in 1998, the organization combats violence against women and children through programs of economic empowerment and vocational training and services such as the helpline, a shelter, counseling, and legal services. Still expanding the shelter, they will eventually be able to house 21 women and children in their 3-story building. At the time of the interview, SOS Line housed 4 women and 9 children at the shelter. They responded to over 700 calls on their helpline in 2014 and tended to 88 cases, 24 of which were children. Ages in the shelter vary greatly, but women as young as 17 without a parent accompaniment, and as old as 66 years, have been staying with them. Montenegro, a country of over 600,000 people, only has two other shelters. Because of the small geographical size of the country, women leaving the shelter often just return to their hometowns and find themselves living close to their abusers. The general thinking is that there is no point in moving someplace else because they will easily be found. Previously, the SOS Line had stricter rules prohibiting clients from contacting their perpetrators directly. Now, however, communication is possible, resulting in a larger percentage of women returning to their husbands. It’s not what the organization hopes for those women, but they do respect their clients’ autonomy and choices for their own lives.
When asked about her vision for the women of Montenegro, an aid worker says: “Montenegro is not a friendly environment for women’s organizations. There is no law that protects women’s rights defenders and ensures their safety.” She also wishes that there was a stronger presence of women’s rights organizations and explains that in areas where such organizations exist, women were generally better off. The role that the police play is invaluable. Only if women’s needs are met, and they feel safe reporting a crime against them, will they come forth and continue to seek the help of police officers, she remarks. These agencies need to be trained to properly respond to women.
Domestic violence in the Balkans is quite normal, but many women are unaware of their human rights. As it pertains to sexual violence, only after women seek help for domestic violence will many of them realize that they have also been assaulted sexually. By definition, sexual assault is sex without consent, by force or coercion. In the Balkan states, No still often means Yes. In her case, Suzana often declined intimacy only to be faced with verbal aggression and comments such as “It [sex] is better for her.” Although her husband said that sex was not the most important thing in their relationship, and that she was free to choose whether she wanted to engage in intimacy or not, she faced his anger when she declined to have sex with him. More often than not, she would give in for fear of other repercussions.
This interview was complex, given that her daughter was translating. While sexual violence was not the predominant problem for Suzana, being in the shelter with her kids and discussing the topic in more detail would have caused emotional distress for her and her daughter. What I heard loud and clear was Suzana’s desire to provide a better life to her children and to teach them the importance of education and executing their free will. I was impressed by how much this message had already been ingrained in her teenage daughter. She shared a book with me that talked about the vicious circle of violence and how she recognized her father in all of the examples it listed. The bond between a mother and the 3 of her children I was honored to meet was touching. Since they were seeking help as a family as a whole, I wanted to include all of them in the photographic part of the project. The quotation they chose translates into: “Fight for yourself and your children. You must and you can!”
I’ll never forget the look in Suzana’s daugher’s eyes when she told me her mother was too old to get a job. These long-held cultural beliefs of a woman’s inferiority, her lack of usefulness beyond a certain age, or of a man’s right to assert himself or his will, all need to be reexamined. Even though the women I met during my travels were from different Balkan countries, they all emanated strength and beauty, and infinite resilience. My prayer for them is that they believe it too. In my heart, I hope they can bring about change, and the risk they took to share their stories is certainly one step toward making that happen.
A special Thank You to my dear friend Kim Birdsong for her support in producing the articles in this Balkan series.
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Stephanie Koehler is a journalist and photographer residing in California. Her goal of ‘Women across Borders’ is to unite women all over the world to document the pain they endure as a result of sexual violence and the healing approach they take to grow from victim to survivor. Her work started in the U.S. and took root in form of interviews with women in various Balkan States and Germany. Her articles include photo essays of female survivors, and are platforms to tell their story. Her former work can be read on The Women’s International Perspective. Stephanie’s vision is to grow this work into a global sexual assault awareness campaign.
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