For Bosnia's women, a slow justice

The first day of the Ratko Mladić war crimes trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was covered in many major news outlets on Wednesday. Interestingly, while The New York Times pointed out that Mladić is the "last of the major figures in the Balkan wars to face trial" at the ICTY, the Times piece contained no mention of the rampant torture and rape of women during the Bosnian War. On the other hand, BBC explicitly mentioned the charges of sexualized violence in its front-page coverage, quoting the prosecuting counsel as saying that the abuse had played an integral part of the process of “taking over and ethnically cleansing Bosnia.”

For the back story on the conflict for which Mladić is finally being tried, nearly two decades after the war, see Women Under Siege's profile, including testimonies of women who survived torture and rape during the war and the legal precedents set by the ICTY.