Some hundreds of women listen in silence. On the left of the stage are the witnesses. On the other side are the Tribunal's experts who, at the end of each session, report the stories in the context of the war against women fought in this region, and not only here. We are in the Bosanski Kulturni Centar, the historic auditorium in the centre of Sarajevo. The women speak, one after another, emerging from the penumbra to centre stage. One witness, from a village in eastern Bosnia, tells of the rapes suffered at age 15 in the Bratunac Concentration Camp. She continues describing the post-war solitude, the poverty, her marriage and the start of a new nightmare of violence ("another form of Camp"). When she says of her divorce, that "they took my adolescence, but they won't have my present and future", the audience rise to their feet and applaud, without stopping. It is not just a sign of respect. It is an exchange of energy. The force coming from the stage, through stories of resistance to indescribable conditions, is conveyed to the audience, and vice versa. Academic language – some of the most important theorists and intellects in the international feminist movement are here – mixes with that of country women with no divide.
The testimonies continue for hours, for three days. Among recurring elements are the continuity of the violence, the length of its consequences for personal, family and community life, the impunity of the torturers ("the murderers still walk the streets"), the misogyny of the institutions, the importance of women's networks ("this is the first Tribunal I've ever been invited to").
The final decisions of the Women's Tribunal will appear in a few weeks on the portal Ž enski Sud .