I Am Beautiful: A Celebration of Women in Their Own Words

Experts expect it will be2000 before Bosnia iseven halfway rebuilt to itsprewar condition. Here, atemporary replacementfor a bombed Ottomanby international donors. Humanitarian funding forwomen's projects is minuscule. The U.S., for example, isspending $400 million rearming the country after the warand the U.S. Agency for International Development(USAID) has allocated $45 million of a loan program tosmall businesses, but none of that money is going to businessesheaded by widows or other women. Clinton's BosnianWomen's Initiative, by contrast, is distributing $5 million,much of it targeted for programs that supplementincomes but don't permit women to earn enough to supporttheir families now that they are the sole breadwinners.In their wisdom, the UN and USAID have also decidedthat Bosnian women no longer need psychological counseling;funding for this vital service has been curtailed. But wartrauma does not disappear that easily. Thousands of Bosnianwomen were wounded or physically brutalized duringthe war, and many also lost not only their husbands but allthe male members of their families—sons, fathers, brothers.Politically, too, women have lost ground. In the formerYugoslavia, an estimated 16 to 30 percent of the governmentwas female. Today, only one woman serves in theparliament. But a journey through Bosnia reveals that de-Spring 1997 • ON THE ISSUES 29