Dear friends,

We send you a document from the "Autonomous Women's Center Against Sexual Violence" (Belgrade). It is a short report of their activities from March 25th to April 24th.

We are pleased to inform you that Women in Black WEB page is ready at http://wib.matriz.net/ (It's only a beginning)

Autonomous Women's Center Against Sexual Violence

Activity report during the war time from 25 of March - 24th of April 1999

Active support in overcoming fear of women

After the first night of bombing, 24th of March the law of war was ordered. Fear became the fact of life overnight... the activists of Women's Center decided to start calling women over the phone to ask them how are they, to give them space for overcoming fears. Until this moment, already six years, the work of Autonomous Women's Center was based on ethical principle that implies that the service is give to women when they ask for it, when they call or come to the Center. The fear in the wartime has moved the borders of private and public and therefore we transgressed the principles of work. Every women became a possible client, at least for a moment. Connecting with each other, calling on the phone, asking women how do they feel... became legitimate activities of the Women's Center. Once again, the women's solidarity inspired many women. That is how we started the active telephone support for women in overcoming fear.

-active phone counseling

The counseling phone work is based on the feminist principles of psychological counseling as well as on the experiences in working with women in fear in the war in Bosnia from the therapists in the Women's Therapy Center Medica Zenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Fear Counseling Team decided on active calling women for different reasons. First because in the war situations women are less mobile and do not leave their homes often. Second, they feel their homes as the only safe place, most of the times, then, the telephone bill is paid by the Women's Center, which is a very important factor in the times of war when the poverty is increasing and women cannot relax to talk about themselves if they know they cannot pay the bill.

Documenting the feelings of fear

Autonomous Women's Center Against Sexual Violence, from its foundation in 1993, believes in the anti-war anti-military politics, in multi-nationality as well as in spreading solidarity with women from the other side of the front line. In the present situation Women's Center is documenting feelings of women who are in fear of NATO bombing and entire war situation, as well as feelings of women in Pristina and other parts from Kosovo that are going through particular processes of fear,

terror and pain.

-documenting calls

- In the first 25 working days, five counselors gave 378 telephone counseling to women from 34 towns in SR Yugoslavia. Statistics of Women's Center show that 232 counseling phone sessions were done with women in Belgrade and others from women in other towns including regions Vojvodina, Sandzak, Montenegro and Kosovo. From all the calls, 87% of calls were initiated in the Center.

-documenting statements of fear

The Women's Center is documenting all types of fears and forms in which fear is manifested.. in body, in dreams, in behavior, in thoughts... From the statements it is easy to conclude that life of every women has changed, that emotional states are changing very often during a day, that emotions that are most dominant is the desperation and anxiety as well as tendency to survive and to adapt to the limited conditions of life.

"I am in a horrible fear" "I fear the night" "I am afraid to go out further than the grocery shop" " I don't go out" " I sleep in the house of my friend" " I cannot concentrate" "I am sensitive on all the sounds" "I have fear of mobilization for my brother" "when sirens starts I feel nauseatic" "I have lost 4 kilos, I broke down psychologically" " every night I go to the shelter, I feel bad" "when I see soldiers on the street I shudder" "I feel I dropped out from the tracks, everything changed in my life" "I am worried for my future" "I am constantly on the sleeping pills" "I sleep all dressed up" "children in the shelter are very disturbed" "On my work place men started to drink intensively' "I am nervous" "I am not afraid of death but I am afraid of sudden sounds" "It is killing me that I cannot work anything any more" "My emotional state is changing every hour" "i threw out the TV set, I cannot listen to that language anymore" "neighbors are talking apocalyptic gossips all the time" "I am nervous, I go from the shelter to the flat three times in one night" "I feel like leaving this country forever, it is so nauseate" "new fears are coming"

-documenting statements about mechanisms of survival

Active role of the Fear Counseling Team of the Women's Center is to support mechanisms of survival in women and their positive experiences. Supporting healthy dimensions of behavior, feelings and thoughts is the main form of the active support of women.

"I am feeling good, I have gone through one war already, I know the rules" "I am concentrated and rational I have enough information" "I feel good, I am supporting other women" "I am cleaning the house all day" "I am walking up and down the town all day" "I spend hours on e-mail" "I have planted many plants" "I am taking my children to the hills" "We are hugging all day" "I am taking sleeping pills, and it works for me"

-documenting statements of women of Albanian nationality in Kosovo

The Fear Counseling Team has been calling women and activists in Pristina and on Kosovo actively first two weeks after the beginning of the NATO bombing.

The Women of Serbian nationality have stated their fears of bombing, the women of Albanian nationality apart from fears of bombing had much stronger fears of Serbian officials, army and police. After first two weeks many women of Albanian nationality have been forced to leave their homes, as they said, in front of the soldiers who had machine guns and spoke Serbian language. After that, with their families they were forced to go to the buses of trains that took them close to the Macedonian border. From Macedonia some of them have called us to tell us that they are alive and healthy and from some of them we heard parts of the humiliation stories and terror they had to go through in the meantime.

"I am terrorized" "strange silence is horrifying me" "we are sitting in the dark every night, I cannot sleep nor eat, but I have coffee and cigarettes" "we don't get out of homes at all, not even during the day" "I don't know what to tell you nor what to think, I am still alive"

-workshops about feelings

First month the Women's center has organized four workshops with the title How do we feel. The exchange of negative and positive experience have been of paramount importance for participants to feel they are not alone in their fears and to be supported for their positive feelings.

AAutonomous Women's Center Against Sexual Violence continues the active telephone support of women and will continue to issue reports and analysis of data obtained.

The Fear Counseling Team:
biljana maletin, bobana macanovic, bosiljka janjusevic, lepa mladjenovic, sandra tvitic