AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program

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Report on Science and Human Rights

Summer/Fall 2001 Vol XXI, No. 1

On 17 February 2001, the Science and Human Rights Program honored Dr. Flora Brovina at its eighth Annual Human Rights Reception which took place at the AAAS Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California. Dr. Brovina, a pediatrician, poet, and women’s rights activist from Pristina, Kosovo, embodies the principles and qualities that this reception is intended to honor: a scientist who, through action and example, has promoted human rights, usually at great personal risk.

Dr. Flora Brovina founded and serves as President of the League of Albanian Women, a nongovernmental organization that protects the rights of women. The League played an important role during the violence in Kosovo by advocating for a peaceful resolution to the conflict and providing aid to refugees of the war. In March 1998, as tensions escalated and NATO members debated military intervention, Dr. Brovina and the League organized a march of 20,000 ethnic Albanian women. In a peaceful demonstration, the women gathered in front of the U.S. Information Center in Pristina and waved sheets of blank white paper to symbolize that all options were still open because “nothing had been written down.” The League hoped that it would be possible to broker a deal allowing ethnic Albanians the right to self-determination, autonomy for Kosovo, and an end to the Serb military occupation that would not involve more fighting and loss of life.

During the armed conflict in the spring of 1999, Dr. Brovina elected to stay in Pristina where she felt her medical skills would be most needed. She established a clinic, the Center for Rehabilitation of Women and Children, which served as a shelter for people who had fled from war torn areas and provided basic medical care to civilians. During the war 130 children were born in the Center, thirteen of them during the NATO bombing. The Center also served as an orphanage, caring for 25 children who had lost their parents in the war. When the Albanians reclaimed Pristina, they found the orphanage deserted; no one knows what happened to the children.

During this time, Dr. Brovina moved into a neighbor’s house, hoping to avoid the Serb forces. But on April 20, 1999, they came for her. During the frightening days that followed, her family did not know her whereabouts. They soon learned she had been imprisoned. In November, she was brought to trial and on December 9, 1999, one day before the celebration of International Human Rights Day, she was sentenced to 12 years in prison for allegedly “conspiring against the government to commit terrorism.” Her crime: helping the women and children of Pristina. The Serbian government’s evidence was almost nonexistent, consisting primarily of statements made by Dr. Brovina under extreme duress.

In November 2000, new Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica released Dr. Flora Brovina. She had spent 19 months in prison. She credits her release to the strong international attention to her case.

Dr. Brovina continues to work tirelessly on behalf of women and children in Pristina. She has stated, “I am a pediatric doctor. Tomorrow or the day after, I want to visit my children in the psychological rehabilitation center for children and women. After all I’ve been through, I don’t want to be a patient but want rather to have the strength to care once again for my children—of whom there is no small number—who experienced trauma.”

Dr. Brovina has established a foundation to continue her work with the women and children of Pristina, which was cut short during her time in prison. She is particularly interested in aiding in the rehabilitation of mothers and children who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. She plans to continue to provide special care for the many orphans in Kosovo. In addition to providing medical care, Dr. Brovina would like to help the war widows by training them in small business development, to enable them to earn the money they need to survive.

Dr. Brovina is an internationally known poet who has published five collections of poetry. Her works have been translated into several major languages. During her remarks at the reception, Dr. Brovina read a poem from her most recently published collection of poetry, Call Me By My Name, in which her poems appear in the original Albanian and in English translation.

To read more about past honorees, please visit our website at: http://shr.aaas.org/honors.htm

Prayer to verse

My humble verse, my fine verse,
You think I’m an outlaw,
Me, the pediatrician.
And hid me on a shelf,
Under your pillow, in a bride’s trousseau,
Let us walk proudly to our cells
In all of the prisons,
You think I’m an outlaw,
Me, the doctor,
Let us kiss the wounds,
Let us wipe away the tears,
Let us raise, let us raise
Our little children,
When the day comes,
I will unlock the door of number 15,
Of my health clinic,
I’ve kept the key,
I did not give it to the police,
You think I’m an outlaw,
Let us be together
With each of the children, oh verse.

Flora Brovina Pristina, 24 August 1990

Translated by Robert Elsie and reprinted with permission from Gjonlekaj Publishing Co.