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Shyhrete Tahiri-Sylejmani. Photo: Kallxo.com.

Shyhrete Tahiri-Sylejmani filed a criminal complaint to Kosovo’s Special Prosecution for War Crimes on Monday in an attempt to ensure that her attacker during the 1998-99 war is prosecuted.

“I am here today to share the pain I hold in my soul and to represent all the mothers, women, sisters and brothers who share the same pain as me and give them courage,” Tahiri-Sylejmani told a press conference in front of the Special Prosecution building.

“It is not easy to share this pain, which breaks the heart and soul, but I am here to seek justice,” she added.

Tahiri-Sylejmani is one of the few Kosovo Albanian survivors of wartime sexual violence to speak publicly, following the example of Vasfije Krasniqi-Goodman, who spoke out last year about how she was raped by Serbian police in her village in 1999, when she was 16 years old.

Tahiri-Sylejmani was accompanied at her press conference by Feride Rushiti, the head of the Kosovo Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims.

Rushiti emphasised that it was important for victims of wartime sexual violence to come forward and not just talk behind closed doors about the crimes they suffered.

“During these 20 years we have shared many silent stories with these people who survived such horrid crimes, which most of the time have not even been discussed within families. We have unfortunately kept them hidden even from society and the relevant institutions,” Rushiti said.

Rushiti accused Kosovo’s institutions of not having convicted anyone who committed crimes of sexual violence during wartime.

“Without justice there is no peace for the survivors of sexual violence during the war,” she said.

Krasniqi-Goodman’s televised interview last year about her case was credited as opening up discussion about the issue of wartime sexual violence by Serbian forces in Kosovo.

Krasniqi-Goodman also testified at a US House of Representatives’ foreign affairs committee hearing in Washington DC earlier this year, calling on the US to “address impunity for war crimes and abuses” by helping to push for justice for the victims.

No verified statistics exist on the number of victims of sexual violence inflicted by Serbian forces during the Kosovo war.

A total of 400 women and 12 men have the official status of victim of wartime sexual violence in Kosovo.

A report by Amnesty International published in 2017 said only a few of those accused of wartime rape have been prosecuted.