A road trip story only makes sense when the travelers, at least mistakenly, have a goal and believe that arriving at their destination will solve all problems and end all the hassles of the trip. There is no such goal in Bosnia; all roads are seemingly equally bumpy and pointless, leading you around in circles even when you seem to be making progress. Driving through Bosnia is different: “a twisted cosmic worm that does not lead to an external and real destination but to the gloomy, barely traversed depths of your own being.” These are Lana Bastašić’s words, whose latest novel is called „Uhvati zeca.“
Sister Blanka and Mualima Šejla traveled on quite different paths through life, but those two paths left them with the same desires and motivations. Sister Blanka’s journey began in flat Slavonian County. Mualima Šejla, along with her mother and two sisters were forced out of Bratunac, a town in eastern Bosnia near Srebrenica, during the war. Eventually, these paths came together in Livno.
In her book From Outrage to Courage, scholar Anne Firth Murray remarks: “Being born female is dangerous for your health. This reality may not be true for many readers, but for most women living in poor countries around the globe, it is devastating.”
It isn’t easy being a woman in today’s world, but the increasing differences in the treatment of women and men have a significant impact on the statistics on women’s employment in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Violence against women in BiH is a problem that is still not being sufficiently discussed and victims of violence most often choose to remain silent due to a variety of societal, religious or material factors.