IV
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. CON. RES. 26
Calling for the end of impunity of unpunished Serbian sexual war crimes
during the 1999 Kosovo war in the case of United States citizen and
sexual war crime survivor Vasfije Krasniqi Goodman and other survivors
of sexual and gender-based violence.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
APRIL10, 2025
Ms. J
OHNSONof Texas (for herself, Mr. TORRESof New York, Mr. VEASEY,
Mr. L
ATIMER, Ms. OMAR, Mr. MCGOVERN, Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ, and Mr.
S
ELF) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred
to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Calling for the end of impunity of unpunished Serbian sexual
war crimes during the 1999 Kosovo war in the case
of United States citizen and sexual war crime survivor
Vasfije Krasniqi Goodman and other survivors of sexual
and gender-based violence.
Whereas Vasfije Krasniqi was 16 years old during the 1999
Kosovo war and living in Stanofc i Poshtem, Kosovo,
then under the control of the Republic of Serbia, which
was part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and led
by President Slobodan Milosevic;
Whereas, on April 14, 1999, a Serbian police officer entered
Ms. Krasniqi’s family home in Stanofc i Poshtem,
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Kosovo, looking for all male occupants, and ordered Ms.
Krasniqi to go to the police station to give a statement
about her father and brothers, who were not present;
Whereas the Serbian police officer threatened to shoot every-
one present, including Ms. Krasniqi and her mother, be-
fore forcibly removing Ms. Krasniqi from the house and
taking her to a Serbian village nearby;
Whereas the Serbian police officer forced Ms. Krasniqi into
an empty house off the main road and threw her onto
dried corn stacks before taking her to his car, where he
started raping her despite her yelling and screams for
him to stop;
Whereas Ms. Krasniqi was held at gunpoint and raped re-
peatedly before losing consciousness;
Whereas, once Ms. Krasniqi regained consciousness, she
begged the Serbian police officer to kill her, and the Ser-
bian police officer responded by saying, ‘‘No, I won’t be-
cause you will suffer more this way’’, and threatened to
take her to an area full of Serbian forces where more
people would rape her;
Whereas the Serbian police officer later went into a local
store in the same village, from where an older, crippled
Serbian man emerged and forced Ms. Krasniqi out of the
car and took her to an unfinished house where he raped
her;
Whereas, a few hours later, Ms. Krasniqi was taken back to
her village where she was left out on the street and told
not to tell anyone about what had transpired;
Whereas Ms. Krasniqi did not want to go home having to ex-
plain to anyone what had happened to her, but instead
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walked through the village cemetery and hoped that her
life would come to an end then and there;
Whereas, upon arriving at her uncle’s house hours after the
assault, Ms. Krasniqi did not have to say a word, as ev-
eryone knew what had happened, witnessing her scratch-
es, bruises, cuts, and torn clothes;
Whereas Ms. Krasniqi reported her case to the Kosovo Lib-
eration Army (KLA) the day after she was raped on
April 15, 1999;
Whereas, in March 1999, with the support of the United
States, NATO began a 78-day air campaign against Ser-
bian forces in Kosovo after efforts to negotiate an end to
the Kosovo war collapsed, leading to Serbia’s agreement
to cease all military activity in Kosovo and to facilitate
the withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo, and the
deployment of a NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR);
Whereas the United Nations Security Council then passed
Resolution 1244 on June 10, 1999, which established the
United Nations Interim Administration Mission in
Kosovo (UNMIK) as a temporary government until
Kosovo’s own institutions had developed and dem-
onstrated the capacity to self-govern, which included var-
ious powers, such as the authority to administer justice
in Kosovo and the ability to investigate and prosecute se-
rious crimes committed during the war;
Whereas Ms. Krasniqi reported her case to UNMIK on Sep-
tember 10, 1999, with no outcome, as well as to the
French KFOR on April 21, 2004, but inaction of both
these bodies caused additional difficulties and delays in
her case;
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Whereas Kosovo declared independence on February 17,
2008, and has since received the recognition of over 100
states, including the United States and 23 of the 28 Eu-
ropean Union member states, though Serbia still rejects
such claim;
Whereas the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo
(EULEX) was launched in 2008 as a civilian mission to
support rule-of-law institutions, accountability, and com-
pliance with international human rights standards in
Kosovo within the framework of United Nations Security
Council Resolution 1244, as well as to support the Spe-
cialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office in
line with relevant Kosovo legislation;
Whereas Ms. Krasniqi moved to the United States in 2001,
naturalized as a citizen in 2006, and now lives in
Rowlett, Texas, with her husband and two children, each
of whom are also United States citizens, and she has also
taken the last name Goodman;
Whereas Ms. Krasniqi Goodman reported her case to
EULEX authorities and gave five interviews from August
2010 to July 2012, and witnesses gave several testi-
monies from February 2011 to August 2012;
Whereas, on November 12, 2012, the Special Prosecution Of-
fice of the Republic of Kosovo (SPRK) filed the indict-
ment PPS nr. 89/2012 against the perpetrators Jovica
Dejanovic (DOB 09/11/1954), the Serbian police officer,
and Djordje Bojkovic (DOB 11/13/1940), the older and
crippled Serbian man, with the then-District Court of
Mitrovica, which was amended on November 30, 2012;
Whereas the main trial was held between April 4 to 15, 2013,
and on April 17, 2013, the Basic Court of Mitrovica an-
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nounced the judgment that both perpetrators were ac-
quitted of the charge of war crime against the civilian
population (rape), punishable under Articles 22 and 142
CC SFRY;
Whereas, on October 31, 2013, the SPRK Prosecutors sub-
mitted a joint appeal proposing that the judgment of the
first instance court be modified and Jovica Dejanovic and
Djordje Bojkovic be convicted of the criminal offense of
war crime against civilian population, or in the alter-
native, to return the case to the court of first instance
for a retrial;
Whereas the Appellate Public Prosecutor moved the Court of
Appeals to grant the appeal of the Special Prosecutors,
and the Court of Appeals rendered its judgment on May
27, 2014, and found both Jovica Dejanovic and Djordje
Bojkovic guilty and convicted them of the war crime
against civilians under Article 142 CC SFRY (now Arti-
cle 153 CCRK), sentencing them to 12 years and 10
years of imprisonment, respectively;
Whereas, on July 2014, Jovica Dejanovic and Djordje
Bojkovic filed their appeals against the judgment of the
Court of Appeals PaKr 503/13 dated May 27, 2014, and
the Supreme Court of Kosovo rendered a ruling for the
immediate release of Jovica Dejanovic and Djordje
Bojkovic from the detention on remand;
Whereas Jovica Dejanovic and Djordje Bojkovic were re-
leased, and nobody has been held responsible for the sex-
ual war crimes committed against Vasfije Krasniqi Good-
man;
Whereas all prior mechanisms for pursuing accountability for
war crimes in Kosovo have fallen short in bringing per-
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petrators of sexual violence to justice, including the Inter-
national Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia,
UNMIK, EULEX, and the Kosovo judicial system;
Whereas the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) reports that approximately 20,000 individuals
were the victims of conflict-related sexual violence during
the Kosovo war, and Human Rights Watch reports that
rape was used as a weapon of war and instrument of eth-
nic cleansing by Serbian forces during the Kosovo war;
Whereas 20 years later and after approximately 20,000 indi-
viduals raped, there has only been one perpetrator
brought to justice, Zoran Vukotic, by the Prishtina Basic
Court on July 5, 2021;
Whereas the United Nations Security Council Resolution
1820 was unanimously adopted on June 19, 2008, con-
demning the use of sexual violence as a tool of war, and
declared that ‘‘rape and other forms of sexual violence
can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a
constitutive act with respect to genocide’’;
Whereas the United Nations Security Council Resolution
2467 was adopted on April 23, 2019, ‘‘recalling the re-
sponsibilities of States to end impunity and to prosecute
those responsible for crimes of genocide, crimes against
humanity, and war crimes, perpetrated against civilians’’;
Whereas Vasfije Krasniqi Goodman testified before the Com-
mittee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representa-
tives on April 30, 2019, in a hearing titled ‘‘Kosovo’s
Wartime Victims: The Quest for Justice’’, testifying for
justice on behalf of her case and the 20,000 individuals
raped during the Kosovo war;
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Whereas the Republic of Kosovo marked for the first time on
April 14, 2023, the Day of Survivors of Sexual Violence
During the War in Kosovo that coincides with the date
Vasfije Krasniqi Goodman was abducted by Serbian po-
lice and subsequently sexually assaulted; and
Whereas the United States recognizes that preventing and re-
sponding to gender-based violence around the world is
not only a matter of human rights, justice, equity, and
equality, but is also a moral imperative and the strategic
national interest of the United States and its global part-
ners: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate 1
concurring), That Congress— 2
(1) finds it reprehensible that no individuals 3
have been found guilty for the sexual war crimes 4
against Ms. Krasniqi Goodman; 5
(2) strongly condemns the use of rape and 6
other forms of sexual and gender-based violence as 7
a weapon of war; 8
(3) underscores the importance of transparent, 9
accountable, and independent investigations into 10
gender-based war crimes and atrocities; 11
(4) commends the Government of the Republic 12
of Kosovo for taking a tangible and multisectoral ap-13
proach to address the sexual violence during the war 14
in the country; 15
(5) calls on the Government of the Republic of 16
Kosovo to uphold commitments expressed and 17
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agreed to in the ‘‘Protocol for the Treatment of Sex-1
ual Violence Cases in Kosovo’’, and prioritize and 2
expedite cases of rape and sexual assault from the 3
1999 Kosovo War; 4
(6) calls on the Government of the Republic of 5
Serbia to— 6
(A) bring individuals who are responsible 7
for the sexual war crimes on April 14, 1999, of 8
United States citizen Vasfije Krasniqi Goodman 9
in Kosovo before justice pursuant to United 10
Nations Security Council Resolutions 1820 and 11
2467; 12
(B) cease the protection and glorification 13
of any individuals who were involved in war 14
crimes during the Kosovo conflict and make it 15
a priority to investigate and prosecute any such 16
individuals; 17
(C) enforce laws to ensure that known per-18
petrators of sexual gender-based violence are 19
held accountable and are brought before justice; 20
and 21
(D) prioritize the creation and sustainment 22
of appropriate tracking and investigative mech-23
anisms to extradite known perpetrators and 24
convicted offenders of sexual gender-based vio-25
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lence during the Kosovo war in 1999 to Kosovo 1
to be brought to justice according to all conven-2
tions; and 3
(7) calls on the United States Government to— 4
(A) uphold and strengthen its commit-5
ments to counter and prevent the practice of 6
gender-based violence; 7
(B) elevate the case of Vasfije Krasniqi 8
Goodman in future bilateral engagements with 9
the Government of Serbia, especially in terms of 10
accountability for war crimes committed against 11
women and youth; 12
(C) identify the specific factors that in-13
crease the risks of gender-based violence and 14
undermine access to services and safety; 15
(D) monitor efforts by the Government of 16
Serbia and its relevant ministries and offices to 17
investigate and prosecute cases of sexual vio-18
lence during the Kosovo war; and 19
(E) devote sufficient funding to implement 20
a variety of educational, research, and advocacy 21
projects in Kosovo, including the training of ju-22
diciary and law enforcement, as well as funding 23
for a rehabilitation center focusing on physical 24
and psychological rehabilitation from war trau-25
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ma and sexual and domestic violence, and voca-1
tional training and job integrating opportuni-2
ties. 3
Æ
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