Horror: Raped Her With Newspapers And Urinated

5-28-2009 Croatia:

She has lived such a profligate life that she will not even notice one rape case, a judge said.

Irrelevant of the Law on the equality of genders and Law on preventing discrimination, Croatia still has a long way to go for sexual stereotypes and discrimination against women to end. This, unfortunately, was proved very graphically, in a cruel way and undoubtedly by the results of verdicts for rape cases of women conducted by the B.a.B.e. (Be Active Be Emancipated) association with the supervision of Ksenija Turkovic of the Zagreb Faculty of Law and Ana Garacic, vice president of the Supreme Court, attorney Ines Bojic and judge Ivana Radovic at the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Project called “Against stereotypes and discrimination against women – sex crimes in Croatia” is about to end and with the help of the Croatian government`s office for the equality of genders, it will result in a media campaign in order to make the public aware of the issue.

Parents of a raped daughter

The project commenced when a minor girl walked into the B.a.B.e. headquarters over a year ago and asked for help because she was raped by several family friends, and her parents forbid her to report them because they wanted to remain on good terms with them.

- If such a thing happened in Zagreb, I cannot imagine what happens to women and girls in smaller areas – Sanja Sarnavka of the B.a.B.e. association was shocked, even though she has been witnessing all sorts of violence against women for 15 years.

This girl attempted suicide, she left home because her parents through she was at fault for what happened.

- We followed her through the tormenting process, because the female judge kept suspecting her. They were sentenced to two and one year in prison tops, and of course, filed an appeal, which means the story is still underway. Reading the verdict analyses, we could not believe how much the judges made an effort to find justification for the perpetrators so that they got more lenient sentences. Assessing whether the rape happened or not, Croatian jurisdiction does not act the way it is supposed to, according to international standards – Sarnavka explained.

She illustrated this with information for the analysis of the practice of the Supreme Court, which considered five verdicts of rape in marriage and 15 rape cases in 2007 and 2008, 36 verdicts at County courts in Zagreb, Rijeka, Vukovar, Karlovac and the Zagreb Municipality Court.

Profligate will not notice a rape case

The most frequent sentence passed for rape was up to a year in prison, while the most severe punishment was eight years in prison (the maximum sentence is 15 years) for a recidivist rapist. In 14 out of 19 cases re-examined by the Supreme Court, evidence was sought that the victim physically resisted, which is not against the law. In thee cases, the moral of the victim was estimated: in one case, the judge remarked: “She has lived such a profligate life that she will not even notice one rape case”.

The victim is questioned during the court process with especial suspicion when it comes to rape in marriage. In one of the verdicts, the judge explains that the woman was getting on a bit and was having problems with menopause, which made her particularly sensitive and this is why she did not realise that it was not rape, but her husband`s fiery approach, although he banged her head against the bed frame, beat her and threatened to kill their son. The first-degree court did not accept her deposition that she was raped, because it believes she was jealous and caused a heated reaction, while the victim`s menopause was also considered. Interestingly enough, an acquittal for two defendants was passed because the victim was questioned several times in several years. This is why discrepancies were present in her deposition, while her psychological and psychiatric evaluation were not accounted at all. The Supreme Court wanted a retrial, therefore the victim will go through the trauma once again.

The court`s sluggishness is relentless in rape cases as well. In one case, the pre-investigative process lasted three years and four months, while the timeframe of the main discussion ranges from one day to 13 years.

- The defendant was acquitted in this case, i.e. sentenced with parole, with the argument that a lot of time has passed, as if the victim was at fault here and not the system which stalled. The appeal process lasted between three months to six years and seven months in the analyses cases. Analysing the Supreme Court rulings, we see that judges have carious prejudice and are prepared to discriminate against the victims. The law is not that bad, but use of force is always sought. It is not accepted if someone made “just threats”, because the victim was scared and blocked or blackmailed – Sarnavka is horrified.

Although the victims were supposed to have been questioned only once, most often, they had to testify four times, one even had to testify nine times and at the same time, the defendant is not removed from the courtroom, but the victim is forced to go through the ordeal before them.

- These were mostly awful stories. Frequently, the perpetrator would urinate in the victim`s mouth, to humiliate her. Only in two cases the victims were protected by giving testimony via video link, while a professional, a psychologist was present in only seven cases, and a psychologist is mandatory when you have a case, for instance, when several men humiliated the victim by urinating on her, made her run before them naked, while they threw objects at her, made her roll in her own urine or even forced to shove newspapers into her vagina. This woman reported the rape, after which he had to reiterate her deposition before the court seven times. This is not all, because the defendants, who claimed the victim was lying, appealed to the verdict. And they claimed that the evidence has not been entirely submitted because it has not been proved that newspaper can be inserted into the vagina – activist Sarnavka is horrified. ..News Source.. by