As shown by the design of the Newborn monument in Pristina, the 12th anniversary of Kosovo's independence brought to attention all the macabre experiences that victims of rape during the Kosovo war faced. In a link to the "Albania Live" show on Top Channel, Vasfije Krasniqi Goodman, the first woman to speak publicly long ago about rape - indicated that she still remembers the faces of her two rapists.
"Yes, I still have their portraits image on my head," she said tearfully. ?Since the liberation of Kosovo, one has been a Kosovo police officer until 2017. It's images that never go away. It's not something to be forgotten. ?
View this post on Instagram
In October 2018, Vasfije Krasniqi Goodman became the first survivor of sexual violence during the Kosovo war to publicly confess the horror she experienced when she was only 16 years old.
In an interview with RTK, Krasniqi-Goodman described how two Serbs raped her when she was 16 years old. The event took place in 1999, in the village of Babimovc in Vushtrri. One of the Serbs who attacked Krasniqi-Goodman was a police officer of Slobodan Milosevic's regime, the other a 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 had our father and brother. His mother told him they were in Germany. He said 'no, they are not in Germany, they went to war' and went inside and took me, ?Krasniqi-Goodman tells. ?He told me we would go to the police to make a statement. I didn't want to go, but he grabbed me and put me in the car. ?
Krasniqi-Goodman realized he was not going to the police station when the car took the wrong turn. They stopped in Babimovc, a Serb-populated village. ?At that point I just wanted to die with a bullet, and nothing else. I wanted to kill me, ?she says.
Then, the attacker again desecrated the then 16-year-old Vasfie, removed him from Babimovci and sent him to an uninhabited two-story house.
?It forced me to get out of the car. He was hunting me with corn canes. I started crying, screaming, screaming. It forced me back into the car and it was there that I couldn't remember. His left hand was tied and he said, 'You will pay for what your father and your brother have done.' I wanted to kill him, but no, because 'this is how he suffers the most,' ?Krasniqi-Goodman tears.
The horror did not end there. Within hours, 16-year-old Vasfia was raped by another man. ?He was not in uniform, he was wearing civilian clothes. He took me to another house and he did the same thing. "
The same man sent her home. ?Don't report where you were and what happened. Tell the family you were in the police station by giving a statement. Otherwise, I come again, "the officer told Vasfie. She didn't tell anyone what happened, but she thinks everyone understood that the moment they saw her in the face.
Today, Goodman lives in the United States and has been married for years and the mother of two daughters, 18 and 12 years old. Krasniqi-Goodman has become an ambassador of survivors of similar wars. She aims to encourage victims of sexual violence and therefore shared her story with others. In May 2019, she testified before the US Congress.
