I Begged them to Kill Me

Sound Installation │ 5.1 sound │ 04:07 min │ loop │ 2010
Dimension variable

Reading the book “I Begged them to Kill Me: crime against the women of Bosnia and Herzegovina”, publish by Centre for Investigation and Documentation of the Association of Former Prison Camp Inmates of B&H. Published by Sarajevo, 2000; I started to collect sentences without explicit content of act of raping, but the sentences which describe or indicate period pre or after in order to leave a space for recipients to create their own scenes atrocities that have happened.
My aim is to point out on social ignorance and social marginalization of a problem of systematic rape and the treatment of women whose are survivors of rape.
Besides legal impediments, survived victims are facing other traumatic experiences: social alienation, unemployment, housing problems, unsolved legal status, unrecognized status, insufficient medical and psychological help, lacking protection and help. Amnesty International has published the fact that 30% of war crime victims of sexual abuse do not receive any psychological help.
A large number of women, victims of sexual abuse/gender-based violence, have not yet been recognized as such, being deprived of the status and this way the right to any form of reparation. In order to avoid the stigmatization of the surroundings and their own families, some of the traumatized women weren’t able to come out and claim the right, although satisfying conditions, others weren’t well informed about the law or the closing date for applications, and some of them couldn’t gather all the necessary medical documentation. 
There were just a few who had the courage to claim the status of civil victims of war, thus acquiring a minimum compensation the law provides.

Credits

Sound recording: Lana Čmajčanin
Sound editing: Sloven Anzulović
Voice: Nela Hasanbegović, Damir Karišik, Sanela Nuhanović, Lala Raščić, Amar Selimović