For the first time, a survivor of sexual violence during the Kosovo war, Vasfije Krasniqi-Goodman, publicly confessed the horror he was experiencing when he was only 16 years of age. Krasniqi-Goodman lives in the United States, is happily married for years is a mother of two girls, 17 and 11 years old.
In an interview for RTK, Krasniqi-Goodman showed that two Serbs raped him when he was 16 years old. The event occurred in 1999, in the village of Babimovc, Vushtrri. One of the Serbs who attacked Krasniqi-Goodman was Slobodan Milosevic's regime officer, while the other, civilian.
"On April 14, 1999, I was in the yard and went inside to tell my mother to open the door. We did not know if they came to kill us or raid us. He [the Serbian officer] asked where we got our father and brother. Mother told her they are in Germany. He said 'No, they are not in Germany, they went to war' and went inside and took me, "says Krasniqi-Goodman. "He told me we would go to the police to give a statement. I did not want to go but grabbed me and put me in the car. "
Krasniqi-Goodman realized that he was not going to the police station when the car got the wrong turn. They stopped at Babimovc, a Serb-populated village, "At that moment I just wanted to die with a bullet, and nothing else. I wanted to kill me, "she says.
Subsequently, the attacker again raped Vasfije at that time 16 years old, pulled him out of Babimovci and sent him to an uninhabited two-story house.
"He forced me out of the car. He hunted me with corn cane. I started crying, screaming, screaming. He forced me to get in the car and there was something I could not remember. His left arm was tied up and said 'you will pay what your father and brother did.' I wanted to kill me, but no, because 'so much suffers,' "tells Krasniqi-Goodman tears.
The horror did not end there. Within a few hours, the 16-year-old Vasfi was raped by another man. "It was not in uniform, it had civilian clothes. He took me to another house and he did the same job. "
At home, the same man sent him. "Do not tell where you were and what happened. Tell the family you were in the commissariat giving a statement. By contrast, I come again, "the officer Vasfije told 29 years ago. She did not tell anyone what was happening, but she thinks everyone knew it at the moment they saw him in the face.
Vasfije plunder and rape were first acquitted by a court in Mitrovica. Later, in May 2014, at the appeal, they were sentenced to respectively 10 and 12 years imprisonment. "In addition to the days when my daughters were born, she was the happiest day of my life," Vasfi told The Guardian a few months ago.
Krasniqi-Goodman has become an ambassador of survivors of similar wars. In July he spoke with women from Iraq and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the United Nations in Geneva. He traveled to South Korea to talk to women who were forced to be prostituted into military brothels during the Second World War. Vasfije Krasniqi-Goodman intends to encourage victims of sexual violence and therefore shared her story with others. You can find the full interview below.
