Gender Equality is a fundamental value of the European Union (EU) and of the Government of Kosovo. To support gender mainstreaming the EU Accession process, the Kosovo Women’s Network (KWN), together with its members, provided its annual input for the European Commission (EC) Kosovo Report last week. KWN aims to mainstream gender in each chapter of the Report, towards better reflecting the needs of diverse women, men, girls, and boys in the EU Accession process. KWN provided comments to inform most all chapters, focusing on democracy, public administration reform, judiciary and fundamental rights, police, economy, public procurement and finance, relations between Kosovo and Serbia, health, media, and education.
Related to democracy, KWN emphasised that electoral laws should be amended to require 50% participation of women and men as per the Law on Gender Equality, and political parties should take affirmative actions to promote women’s participation and address gender inequalities. Assembly procedures should include quality control of gender impact analyses for all draft laws and actively counter discriminatory rhetoric. The Government should consult more with grassroots, women, minority and disability rights groups. It should also establish sustained, transparent state funding for diverse civil society organisations (CSOs) and undertake legal amendments enabling tax-deductible donations to civil society. Public administration reform should include affirmative measures for women’s equal participation together with merit-based recruitment; and gender-responsive digitalisation of public services. Gender-responsive budgeting (GRB), as required by the Law on Gender Equality, Sustainable Development Goal indicator 5.c.1, and Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) Gender Framework, needs to be institutionalised in new public finance laws and implemented.
Regarding the judiciary, KWN recalled its recommendations to amend the Criminal Code to more clearly address cyberviolence. Kosovo should ensure solid criminal investigations, improve the quality of indictments and ensure effective criminal procedures, including in cases of gender-based violence. To this end, Kosovo should strengthen cooperation between prosecutors and police; and in the random assignment of cases, ensure judges and prosecutors assigned to gender-based violence cases have specialisation in such cases. As per its commitments, the Government should establish a shelter for LGBTQI+ individuals. The Assembly should adopt the Civil Code to protect same-sex marriage in line with the Constitution and address homophobic rhetoric in the Assembly. Further, Kosovo should improve investigations related to hate crimes and online threats against LGBTQI+ persons, journalists and women’s rights activists.
Related to the economy, based on KWN’s research, the Government should implement gender-responsive measures to address informality, including formalising informal employment based on gender analysis. Kosovo must urgently adopt a new Labour Law in line with the EU Work-Life Balance Directive to address women’s concerningly low labour force participation. Towards the EU Barcelona Objectives and its commitments, the Government needs to improve early education and pre-school availability, which can enhance children’s educational outcomes and women’s labour force participation, while involving gender-transformative education. In education, curricula should be further revised to address gender stereotypes.
Related to Kosovo-Serbia relations, women have remained underrepresented in the Dialogue. The Government should communicate more regularly with diverse women, men and women’s rights CSOs related to peace processes, as per the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda.
These and other recommendations submitted to the EU aim to ensure that gender equality is meaningfully integrated across all sectors in Kosovo and the EU Accession process, promoting inclusive reforms that address the needs of diverse women, men, girls and boys. Recommendations were prepared together with the Kosovo Gender Studies Center, Organisation of People with Muscular Dystrophy of Kosovo, The Network of Roma, Ashkali, and Egyptian Women Organizations of Kosovo, and NGO It’s Worth Living.
