Commemorating White Armband Day 2022 and the Role of Omarska Rape Victims in the Classification of Wartime Sexual Violence as a War Crime

That the Parliament observes White Armband Day, which takes place every year on 31 May to commemorate the beginning of the ethnic cleansing campaign of Prijedor, northern Bosnia-Herzegovina, of Bosniak, Croatian and any other non-Serb civilians by Bosnian Serb authorities on 31 May 1992; commemorates that, from that day, all non-Serb citizens were forced to mark their houses with white flags or bedsheets and to wear white armbands when leaving the house, marking themselves for extermination; regrets that this resulted in the ethnic cleansing of 94% of the Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat population from the Prijedor municipality where 3,173 people, including 102 children, were killed during the war and nearly 31,000 people were detained in concentration camps such as Omarska, Keraterm, and Trnopolje, while 53,000 were forced to flee; acknowledges that this was the second biggest massacre in the Bosnian War after the Srebrenica Genocide; commends human rights activists, Nusreta Sivac, a former judge, and Jadranka Cigelj, a former lawyer, two of 37 women subjected to a campaign of rape and torture in the Omarska concentration camp, five of whom were murdered by guards, on their testimonies in war trials and the continued role that they play in raising awareness of wartime sexual violence as a war crime; recognises the work done by Ms Sivac, Ms Cigelj and the Women’s Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina in preparation for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 1993; understands that it led the statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to be the first to include rape as a crime against humanity, alongside other crimes such as torture and extermination, when committed in armed conflict and directed against a civilian population; notes with concern reports from Ukraine that women are currently being subjected to systematic campaigns of sexual violence by Russian forces during the ongoing Russian invasion; acknowledges that Ms Sivac advises women who are victims of sexual violence in the context of wars, and anywhere else, to document as much of these heinous crimes as they are able to, to help amass evidence for if and when they get their day in court; condemns sexual violence under any circumstances in the strongest possible terms, and pays tribute to the courage of those who have been or are currently being subjected to wartime rape or any other form of sexual violence, anywhere in the world.