After recognition - what happens to survivors of wartime sexual violence thirty years after the wars?

Her case illustrates an important limitation of reparations systems. Recognition frameworks can support only those survivors who are able to enter them. Many remain outside formal systems because of stigma, family pressures, fear of exposure or unresolved psychological distress. Their absence from official statistics should not be interpreted as an absence of need.

A third encounter took place in Ahmići in 2025 during a conference organized by the Kolo Women's Group. There, I met a survivor who had dedicated much of her post-war life to preserving local memory and documenting the experiences of victims and survivors associated with the Ahmići massacre. Her work focused on education, remembrance and community engagement.

Her experience demonstrates a different trajectory. Her response took the form of active participation in preserving collective memory and historical consciousness. Yet her testimony also raises broader questions. Why do so many responsibilities connected to remembrance, education and survivor support continue to depend upon individual survivors and local organizations? Why are these functions not more systematically integrated into long-term state structures?

The three cases differ significantly. One survivor pursued legal recognition. One remained outside recognition systems entirely. One became involved in memory work. Yet all three point toward the same conclusion.

The consequences of wartime sexual violence continue long after legal processes have ended.

Over the course of my research, I have come to understand these experiences through what I call the Social and Political Nervous System (SPNS). The concept refers to the interconnected legal, social, institutional and political environments within which survivors continue to live after conflict. Wartime sexual violence does not affect only the individual body or psyche. It also affects relationships with institutions, families, communities and systems of public recognition.

From this perspective, recovery cannot be reduced to clinical symptoms or individual adaptation. Survivors interact throughout their lives with legal institutions, healthcare systems, welfare structures, family networks, public narratives and political decisions. These interactions shape long-term outcomes as much as the original violence itself.

The testimonies collected in Bosnia and Kosovo suggest that the greatest challenge facing survivors today is not the absence of legal recognition. Significant progress has been achieved in that area. The challenge is the absence of systematic long-term monitoring and support.

Few mechanisms evaluate how survivors are functioning decades after the violence. Limited data exist regarding long-term physical health outcomes, aging-related needs, social isolation, family relationships or economic vulnerability among survivor populations. Support services often depend on non-governmental organizations, donor-funded projects, or local initiatives rather than on coordinated national systems. Similar concerns have been raised repeatedly by international organizations and survivor advocates across the region.

This is particularly important because survivors are aging. Many are now entering older adulthood while continuing to live with consequences that extend beyond trauma in the narrow psychological sense. Chronic health conditions, caregiving responsibilities, economic insecurity, unresolved stigma and social isolation frequently emerge as long-term concerns. Yet few post-war policies were designed with a thirty-year horizon in mind.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Croatia have all made important progress in recognizing survivors of wartime sexual violence. Those achievements should not be minimized. Recognition, compensation and legal acknowledgment represent major advances compared with the immediate post-war period.

However, recognition is not equivalent to recovery.

Thirty years after the wars, the central challenge is no longer proving that wartime sexual violence occurred. The evidence is overwhelming. The challenge is whether post-war societies are prepared to develop coordinated legal, medical, psychological and social systems capable of accompanying survivors across the lifespan.

The experiences of survivors suggest that recognition should be understood not as the endpoint of justice, but as the beginning of a long-term responsibility.