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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.
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