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

and the raw materials; we have theknow-how and the skills. We need support,but we are not disabled," says Boric.Even women in rural areas haveproved that. Hanifa Karic, in the smallnorthern community of Babunovici,demonstrated her entrepreneurial talentswhen she launched a sugar-cube manufacturingcompany in her living room.The supply of sugar cubes, preferred byBosnians in the small cups of thick,syrupy coffee they consume daily,dried up in the war when both factoriesended up in the Serb-controlledpart of the country. Recognizinga need, Karic, who workedin a textile factory before the warbut was retired after being injuredin a fall, applied for a 12-monthmicro-enterprise loan of DM 2,000.The six-month-old business, whichuntil now has been hand-operated,has been so successful that it isabout to become mechanized. Itcurrently produces almost a ton ofsugar cubes daily by operating 16hours a day in eight-hour shifts.The business has also enabledKaric to buy a car, a VW Golf. "Ifeel much safer than before, nowthat I have a business," she says.Karic, a Muslim, employs a Serbbookkeeper. "It is important to respecta person regardless of theirnationality," she says, sweepingaway the ethnic divisions that rentthis country during the war. In thisregard, she is not that unusual.Many Serbs stayed on in Bosnia duringthe war, and many protected Muslimsfrom Serb soldiers, some dying in theprocess. During the height of the Sarajevosiege, of the 380,000 remaining population,an estimated 55,000 were Serbs.MIRA BAJER IS A 41-YEAR-OLD HIGHschool teacher of Bosnian languagein Tuzla. A Serb married to aCroat, she and her husband elected tostay in the city as more and more Muslimsrefugees flooded in, and Serb artillerydaily targeted Tuzla. Throughoutthe war, she also worked a second job asa program coordinator at BOSPO, aidingMuslim women refugees. Her husbandserved in the Bosnian army, which infact, was not unusual. While it is littleknown outside the former Yugoslavia,one third of the Bosnian Defense Forcesduring the war were Serbs and Croats.Bajer insists she and her husband arenot unique. Before the war, she pointsout, as many as 40 percent of urban Bosnianmarriages were ethnically mixed. Religiousobservation, after all, was illegalin socialist Yugoslavia, and the vast majorityof the population was secular. Eventoday, her teenage daughter has a Muslimboyfriend. "It's true that when I firststarted working at BOSPO, I didn't tellthe women, many of them Srebrenicarefugees, that I was a Serb," she pointsout. "They were too unhappy then. IWoman at Bosfam's carpet-weaving, incomegenerating project.waited until they knew who I was, beforeI said it, and then it didn't matter anymore.By then they could view me as awoman, and not as a Chetnik."We must break this, 'You're a Serb, I'ma Muslim,' and be a bridge between people,eyes to eyes. I can teach many skills tothe women at BOSPO; that's what's important,not my ethnic background."The economic futures of women workingin income-generating projects run byhumanitarian organizations may be tenuousat best. The handful of refugeewomen sitting in front of looms at theBosfam agency, a Bosnian NGO in Tuzla,learned to weave when they were growingup. Back home, weaving was ahobby, and the carpets they producedwere used to decorate their homes. Butnow, women like 50-year-old Nura Habibovic,who lost everything during the fallof Srebrenica, would be destitute withoutthe DM 150 a month they make here.Bosfam is already struggling to pay itsmonthly rent of DM 3,000. And projectslike the carpet-weaving one are increasinglyexpected by international donors tobecome self-sustaining, which usuallymeans that international funding willsoon end. "It's ludicrous to expect suchprojects to be self-sustaining in a collapsedeconomy," says Boric, who adds thatunder such guidelines, one major hinderthat operated 80 such projects last year, renewedonly three of them this year. "Ithink that is pretty telling, don'tyou?" she asks.The intricate, pure wool carpetsare of excellent quality, but inBosnia only SFOR troops or foreignrelief workers can afford them.Dealers in Austria have shown interestin marketing them, but considerthe cost, DM 850 for a 9 x 6 ftcarpet, overpriced. That sum, approximately$600, was less than amonth's income for many in theformer Yugoslavia. Each carpettakes a refugee woman, workingfull time, six days a week, betweenfour and five months to weave.FVEN MORE IMPORTANT THAN THEincome is the social supportthe women at projects like Bosfamreceive. "I thought I would diewhen I was forced to leave Srebrenica,"says Habibovic, her voicecracking. "I miss everything. Idon't have anything now. It's easierfor me to work and not remember."Beba Hadzic, the 49-year-oldprogram manager of Bosfam,knows the importance of the emotionalsupport her agency offers. "The agencyhas a psycho-social component. Thewomen here have all been through thesame experiences, and we understandhow that feels." On the wall behind heras she talks, hangs a small cushion coverwith the name Paric Alem, and the dateJuly 11, 1995, embroidered on it. "Wehave over 9,000 of those," she says."Each one carries the name of a missingSrebrenica man. Paric is my 17-year-oldnephew." (Some 750 Srebrenica menhave already been confirmed dead.)A Srebrenica refugee herself, Hadzic, aformer elementary-school administrator,says, "Bosfam has become a replacementextended family for these women." Sucha role is a heavy responsibility. And it isrepeated throughout the country, byother agencies working with otherwomen war survivors. One can onlyhope that the international donor communityis up to the task. Bosnian womenhave suffered enough. •t• _O N T H E I S S U E S • S p r i n g 1 9 9 7