Sarajevo Women's War Victims Center

The Center for Women War Victims in Zagreb is a women’s organization whose work in the book links local support for survivors of wartime rape with a wider effort to build crisis services and expertise across borders. Through support from V-Day, it was to open the first rape crisis center in the former Yugoslavia and train women from Kosovo and Chechnya to work with women traumatized by war. The Center is thus presented not only as a recipient of support, but as a base for extending assistance to survivors elsewhere.

A Crisis Center and Regional Training

V-Day’s support was intended to enable the Center to open a rape crisis center in the former Yugoslavia. The account emphasizes both the novelty of the planned service—it would be the first of its kind in that region—and its practical role in responding to wartime rape. The Center’s work is placed in a setting where women had been raped and traumatized during conflict, making organized, specialized support an urgent need.

The plan extended beyond the center’s immediate location. Women from Kosovo and Chechnya were to receive training so they could work with women in their own countries who had experienced rape and war-related trauma. This arrangement gives the Center a regional function: support would include building women’s capacity to help survivors in other conflict-affected communities, rather than remaining confined to one facility.

Partnership and Purpose

The book describes the Center’s planned work as part of V-Day’s broader support for initiatives addressing violence against women. That partnership connects financial and organizational backing to concrete services: establishing a crisis center and preparing women to assist survivors. The account does not detail the Center’s internal structure or the precise form of the training, but it makes clear that both survivor care and the transfer of practical knowledge were central to the initiative.

The scope of this model is significant in the passage: a center in Zagreb is linked to women working in Kosovo and Chechnya, joining local institutional support to cross-border response. Its stated purpose is practical rather than symbolic—women affected by wartime rape and trauma are to receive help from women equipped to work with them.

Recognition and Significance

The book’s closing acknowledgments return to the Center’s women, offering blessings to its “generous, powerful women” and specifically recognizing those in Zagreb. This brief tribute complements the earlier account of the Center’s proposed services: its members appear both as participants in an organized response to wartime violence and as a community whose commitment the author wishes to honor.

The Center’s significance in the account lies in the connection between support, service, and training. V-Day’s backing was to help establish a first regional rape crisis center while enabling women to assist survivors in Kosovo and Chechnya. The book closes by acknowledging the women behind that work, underscoring the human and organizational relationships on which the initiative depended.