Mission Rape

Despite increasingly refined technology mass-rape as a tool of war is used in modern combat. 25,000 – 40,000 women were victims of mass rape during the Balkan war 1992-1995. When a woman is raped, the entire family is affected for generations to come.

20 years after these crimes only very few cases of war crimes of sexual violence have been investigated and prosecuted. For the women in the film the rapes remain a heavy, dark shadow in their lives enshrouded by taboo. For these women legal justice is the only hope to regain integrity and life. But justice fails and betrays them all the way to the International Criminal Court of Justice (ICTY) in The Hague

When the war ended, those responsible were never sentenced, neither by local courts nor by the ICTY. Legislation does not focus on the situation of the war-raped women, and without legal justice they find it hard to get on in life and regain their self-esteem.

The rapists from the war are at large, whereas the women are afraid to return to their homes. In court cases about war crimes, rape constantly falls down on the agenda. The film shows how the ICTY downgrades the rape that was committed against one of the main characters of the film by a high-ranking and notorious officer from the war