‘Tied to the bed’: Horrors of giving birth in Serbia

Biljana Cicic-Stanic still bristles when she remembers the pain, violence, and humiliation she endured while giving birth to her son in Serbia, an experience many women say is normal in the Balkan country's hospitals.As elsewhere in the Balkans, a combination of patriarchal values and a weak legal system has allowed for medical violence against women to often go unchecked.