Legal Protection of Women and Female Children in Armed Conflicts and at a Time of Transition in South-Eastern Europe

The example of South-Eastern Europe shows that women and female children are the most vulnerable parts of societies affected by wars and post-war periods mostly because of their physical particularities, traditional family roles and positions, overall poor economic situation (especially high unemployment rate that leads to trans-border illegal migrations) and insufficient legal and executive mechanisms for their protection in everyday life. The paper emphasizes the most common problems related to women and female children present both at the time of war and peace, such as outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment, rape, forced transfers and deportations, trafficking for sexual exploitation, the worst forms of child and forced labour and other issues that need to be addressed as growing international problems and phenomena of violating women's and female children's rights. Effects of hostilities are perceived through the special legal protection based on the principle of differentiated treatment between men and women, and most legal observations concerned with armed conflicts in the Former Yugoslavia are based on the relevant case-law of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. The process of transition in South-Eastern Europe, characterised by the general pattern of discrimination against women and female children, and numerous cases of trafficking in human beings and child labour, is summarised in the second part of the paper, through, inter alia, a detailed description of relevant international human rights and labour law standards.