Perpetrators, Bystanders, and Victims: An Examination of Women's Roles in the Yugoslav Wars

In this thesis, I will explore the three main roles that women played in the Yugoslav Wars of 1991-2001: perpetrator, bystander, and victim. Through examining these roles, I hope to draw an equal amount of attention to each of these roles and add new insight to current scholarly discourse on this subject. Furthermore, examining women in Yugoslavia will also reveal how gender influences modern conflicts, especially regarding sexual violence and the justice system. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that women, whether perpetrators, bystanders, or victims, experienced the war differently from men because of gender norms, because women were symbols of the nation, and because the identity of womanhood and their physical differences made them especially vulnerable to sexual violence. Furthermore, the Yugoslav Wars served as a turning point for understanding and prosecution of wartime rape, with the international community finally recognizing it as an intentional, organized strategy and as a crime against humanity. After examining primary documents from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, reading first-person accounts, listening to interviews from witnesses and participants, and consulting a wide variety of secondary and tertiary sources, I hope this project will prove useful not only to researchers hoping to better understand the Yugoslav Wars, but also those seeking to understand the gender dynamics of conflict and the crucial role of identity politics in modern warfare.