IV 
118TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. CON. RES. 36 
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 
APRIL 27, 2023 
Mr. ALLRED (for himself, Mr. VEASEY, Mr. ESPAILLAT, Mr. VARGAS, and Mr. 
TORRES of New York) 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, 
Kosovo, looking for all male occupants, and ordered Ms. 
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•HCON 36 IH 
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 
walked through the village cemetery and hoped that her 
life would come to an end then and there; 
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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; 
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-
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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-
nounced the judgment that both perpetrators were ac-
quitted of the charge of war crime against the civilian 
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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-
petrators of sexual violence to justice, including the Inter-
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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; 
Whereas the Republic of Kosovo marked for the first time on 
April 14, 2023, the Day of Survivors of Sexual Violence 
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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 
concurring), That Congress— 
(1) finds it reprehensible that no individuals 
have been found guilty for the sexual war crimes 
against Ms. Krasniqi Goodman; 
(2) strongly condemns the use of rape and 
other forms of sexual and gender-based violence as 
a weapon of war; 
(3) underscores the importance of transparent, 
accountable, and independent investigations into 
gender-based war crimes and atrocities; 
(4) commends the Government of the Republic 
of Kosovo for taking a tangible and multisectoral ap-
proach to address the sexual violence during the war 
in the country; 
(5) calls on the Government of the Republic of 
Kosovo to uphold commitments expressed and 
agreed to in the ‘‘Protocol for the Treatment of Sex-
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ual Violence Cases in Kosovo’’, and prioritize and 
expedite cases of rape and sexual assault from the 
1999 Kosovo War; 
(6) calls on the Government of the Republic of 
Serbia to— 
(A) bring individuals who are responsible 
for the sexual war crimes on April 14, 1999, of 
United States citizen Vasfije Krasniqi Goodman 
in Kosovo before justice pursuant to United 
Nations Security Council Resolutions 1820 and 
2467; 
(B) cease the protection and glorification 
of any individuals who were involved in war 
crimes during the Kosovo conflict and make it 
a priority to investigate and prosecute any such 
individuals; 
(C) enforce laws to ensure that known per-
petrators of sexual gender-based violence are 
held accountable and are brought before justice; 
and 
(D) prioritize the creation and sustainment 
of appropriate tracking and investigative mech-
anisms to extradite known perpetrators and 
convicted offenders of sexual gender-based vio-
lence during the Kosovo war in 1999 to Kosovo 
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to be brought to justice according to all conven-
tions; and 
(7) calls on the United States Government to— 
(A) uphold and strengthen its commit-
ments to counter and prevent the practice of 
gender-based violence in accordance with the 
‘‘United States Strategy to Prevent and Re-
spond to Gender-Based Violence Globally’’; 
(B) elevate the case of Vasfije Krasniqi 
Goodman in future bilateral engagements with 
the Government of Serbia, especially in terms of 
accountability for war crimes committed against 
women and youth; 
(C) identify the specific factors that in-
crease the risks of gender-based violence and 
undermine access to services and safety; 
(D) monitor efforts by the Government of 
Serbia and its relevant ministries and offices to 
investigate and prosecute cases of sexual vio-
lence during the Kosovo war; and 
(E) devote sufficient funding to implement 
a variety of educational, research, and advocacy 
projects in Kosovo, including the training of ju-
diciary and law enforcement, as well as funding 
for a rehabilitation center focusing on physical 
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and psychological rehabilitation from war trau-
ma and sexual and domestic violence, and voca-
tional training and job integrating opportuni-
ties. 
Æ 
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