Bosfam

Bosfam was established in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina as a refuge for displaced Bosnian women regardless of their age, religion, ethnic background, or education. Bosfam’s mission is to help war-affected Bosnian women and their families gain psychosocial and economic stability as they struggle against trauma, poverty, and misery. Bosfam operates on the principles of humaneness, impartiality, independence, and voluntarism.^[1]

The Bosnian war of 1992-1995 was characterized by ethnic cleansing and forced displacement. Thousands of Bosniak-Muslims expelled from their homes in Srebrenica and the surrounding areas arrived at crowded collective centers in the town of Tuzla. The international relief agency Oxfam started a weaving project to provide the displaced women with something meaningful to do in the idle collective centers. When Oxfam left Bosnia and Herzegovina as the war escalated, one of the displaced women, Munira Beba Hadzić, continued the project and transformed it into an NGO named Bosfam, whose name derives from Bosnian family.

Today, the majority of the members of Bosfam are women who lost their male relatives in the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995, in which more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed by the Bosnian Serb soldiers commanded by General Ratko Mladić. The goals and activities of Bosfam have been expanded to include providing psychosocial support for Bosnian women traumatized by the war and loss of loved ones, helping them with opportunities for income generation, assisting displaced women to return to their homes in Srebrenica, and supporting efforts to bring justice to the victims of the Srebrenica massacre.

Over 60 Bosfam women weave traditional Bosnian carpets, knit sweaters and scarves, and crochet clothing and house décor items. These products are sold online as well as in the Bosfam bazaar in Tuzla. In addition to providing a source of income for the women, skilled handcrafts play an important role in healing the mind and body, relaxing, and re-centering. Simply gathering on a daily basis to weave and knit provides the war-affected women a significant emotional and psychological support and makes their lives more bearable.

In 2007, Bosfam launched the Srebrenica Memorial Quilt project. Under this project, the women of Bosfam weave large quilts made up of individual panels, each of which commemorates a person killed or went missing during the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995. The quilts contain the victims’ names, whereas Bosfam’s website provides these individuals’ photos, brief biographical information, and the date and site of burial if the body has been identified and buried. The reason behind this focus on individuals is to bring identity to the victims and to counteract the phenomenon of reducing massacre victims to mere numbers. Bosfam will have 15 memorial quilts commemorating nearly 400 victims by the 15th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre in 2010. BOSFAM considers the quilt to be “owned” by all Bosnians who were affected by the Srebrenica massacre.

The goal of the memorial quilts is not just to honor the dead and missing, but also to serve as an active instrument for social change – to keep the memory of the massacre alive, demand accountability for the atrocities in Srebrenica, and contribute to efforts of rebuilding Srebrenica and supporting the returnees. The quilts have been displayed at dozens of exhibitions and events in Europe and North America with the help of Bosfam’s Washington-based partner The Advocacy Project to raise awareness of the tragedy in Srebrenica and to act as a tool for human rights advocacy. Most importantly, one of the quilts was used at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia based in The Hague to lobby at the trial of Radovan Karadžić, former president of the Bosnian Serbs.

In 1996, Bosfam started the project Love in Embroidery to make an embroidered cushion for each missing person containing his name, date of birth, and hometown. The women of Bosfam have so far made thousands of cushions, which are used at a peaceful protest on the 11th of each month – symbolizing the fall of Srebrenica which took place on 11 July 1995 – in order to show the immensity of the tragedy of Srebrenica and demand accountability for the mass crimes. The monthly peaceful protest takes place in the center of Tuzla and involves more than 100 people consisting of the victims’ relatives, NGO representatives, and other members of the community.

Bosfam is currently working to open a counseling center in Srebrenica. This new Bosfam center will give legal advice to returnees and provide various workshops for women. Beba Hadžić, the director of Bosfam, says that the women survivors of the Srebrenica massacre are often misperceived as passive victims who simply sit and wait for foreign aid. The mission of this new center is to challenge this misperception, raise the voice of educated and motivated women, and show that the survivors of Srebrenica are not merely passive victims but can be active proponents of social change.

Bosfam website

The Advocacy Project

AP Peace Fellow's blog