Presentation of the “Breaking free” exhibition

Let’s be a society of equal values,
and not a society of different labels!

The BREAKING FREE exhibition is inspired by the stories of children born of war and their mothers, the struggles they dealt with in silence, invisible in a society full of stigmatization and discrimination. The stigmatization is related to sexual violence in the conflict and its survivors are equally attached to children born of the war, which in Bosnia and Herzegovina contributed to a significant part to the rejection and/or abandonment of this category of children by their mothers and/or fathers, and their rights , needs and vulnerabilities have remained unrecognized and ignored by the authorities for more than 25 years. The exhibition is the project of the “Forgotten Children of War” Association, created in cooperation with the French-Syrian artist Sakher Almonem.

In addition to the fight for the equal position of women who survived wartime sexual violence, this exhibition bears witness to the stories of children who were born as a result of war-time sexual violence, children of peacekeepers and children of humanitarian workers who worked during and after the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Children born of war are often called the “hidden population”, because it has been shown that if someone from their environment knows about how their existence, they will be exposed to stigmatization and discrimination. They are still exposed to social condemnation, political and legal rejection. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, there is no legal letter that states the rights and needs of this social category.