Regional Feminists meet to discuss Femicid

 Hosted by Autonomous Women’s Centre, feminist activists from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia gathered from 1 to 2 February 2018 to discuss and exchange knowledge and experience with regard to monitoring femicide in these countries. In this meeting Kosovo was represented by Kosovo Women’s Network. 
        Representatives from each country shared the general situation of their respective countries, focusing on violence against women and femicide and the work they do to prevent and fight these phenomena. Feminist activists agreed that the situation with regard to violence against women remains a common societal concern in all these countries. 
       “We sit here together as a result of the legacy of the feminist that worked together across borders in the 90s, we should continue our cooperation as a continuation of this”, said Aleksandra Nestorov from Autonomous Women’s Center. 
         In order to increase joint efforts to prevent femicide, representatives had a chance to gain experience from the Centre for Women’s Rights in Bosnia and Hercegovina who for eight years have been monitoring cases of violence against women and femicide in their country. The idea behind this was to create a similar methodology for the region to track and monitor cases of femicide. 
        This meeting was a starting point of a joint initiative to be taken by activists from the region in this regard. Participants agreed to draft a concept document which will include a problem analysis and the joint advocacy initiatives that will be undertaken by the activists from the region to combat the issue of violence against women and femicide. 

Kosovo again part of One Billion Rising Campaign

Although the 14th of February is celebrated worldwide as the day of lovers, activists for women and girls rights for several years now are manifesting differently on this date. This is thanks to the One Billion Rising global campaign – an initiative which started since February 2012. It all started as a call for action based on disturbing statistics which show that 1 in 3 women in the world is physically assaulted or raped during their lifetime. With a global population reaching 7 billion, this means that more than 1 billion women and girls experience different forms of violence.
Kosovo has become part of this initiative by organizing every year the One Billion Rising event, since the first campaign at the global level. On this day, feminist activists, women and girls rights activists, individuals and organizations in Kosovo have joined the march, singing and dancing, thus becoming part of events taking place all over the world.
      With the moto “RIDE! RESIS! UNITE!”, Kosovo is part of the One Billion Rising this year as well, calling to express the anger against violence  against women and girls through solidarity and dance.
In Prishtina performance and the traditional dance under the sound of Break the Chain, which also is the anthem of the One Billion Rising campaign, was organized. One Billion Rising was organized by the Center for Art and Community ARTPOLIS supported by the Kosovo Women’s Network (KWN), Gender Studies Program, Kosovo Youth Council, Center for Equality and Liberty for the LGBT (CEL), Kosovar Gender Studies Center, Peer Educators Network, ECMI Kosovo and ORCA.

A More Gender Sensitive National Programme for Implementation of the Stabilization and Association Agreement

 The Ministry of European Integration (MEI), with the support from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), on the 5th of February organized a public consultation on the Draft National Programme for Implementation of the Stabilization and Association Agreement (NPISAA) 2018 – 2022. This came after the draft of this Accession document was circulated among civil society to provide comments directly on the draft. The event was moreover organized to launch the Guideline for Consultations with CSOs and other Stakeholders within the EU-Kosovo Stabilization and Association Bodies. 
            With the support from Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation, Kosovo Women’s Network has been providing comments for the NPISAA since 2016, including this last round for the 2018-2022 one. During the meeting, officials form the MEI made public that plans for the future include the establishment of a Gender Equality Index by the Agency for Gender Equality (AGE), the collection of gender disaggregated data by each institution and continuing the implementation of affirmative measures in the form of administrative instructions for joint registration of property by partners. Thanks to the successful work of AGE, these important steps towards more gender sensitive policy making have now been taken. Moreover, KWN has been pushing for these reforms in various ways, including in written form directly on Kosovo’s Accession documents. Moreover, an official from GIZ congratulated KWN’s input on the economic sections of the NIPSAA, saying that these have been very useful and needed. 
            Next steps to be taken by KWN is signing up to the coming consultation rounds to be organized by the MEI on different sectors within the NIPSAA. 

KWN and Kosovo Midwife Association hold a round-table meeting regarding the maternity hospitals being closed in Kosovo

Kosovo Women’s Network (KWN), in cooperation with the Kosovo Midwife Association, organized on 7 February at Prishtina Hotel a round-table meeting concerning the maternity hospitals being closed in Kosovo, causes and the options for avoiding this situation and putting them to function again.
This meeting was attended by representatives from the Ministry of Health, Trade Union Health Federation, Parliamentary Committee on Health, Main Family Medicine Centers, and representatives of KWN staff and Kosovo Midwife Association. 
      Magbule Elezi, Executive Director of Kosovo Midwife Association, opened the meeting stating once again that in Kosovo there are 14 maternity hospitals in total, but some of them are, unfortunately, out of order.
 Edona Hajrullahu, vice Ombudsperson, committed that the Ombudsperson Institution is a mechanism of equality and as such is responsible for receiving and investigating the complaints of any citizen and inform the public institutions and provide the latter with recommendations. For this reason, Hajrullahu expressed, on behalf of the Ombudsperson Office, the willingness to cooperation with all the actors beyond this meeting, so that all women and girls be provided with an equal access to healthcare.
During the meeting, the participants discussed about maternity hospitals that are open but out of order, and the lack of gynecologists working in them, and how women and girls in rural areas have to go to the nearest city to carry out gynecological visits even if such visits are regular.
Afterwards, Xhejrane Lokaj, said that she has worked since 1978 as a midwife both at the hospital and in education institutions. In the recent years, she has been working in the emergency sector because the maternity hospital is no longer functional. “Dragash maternity hospital is not closed. I have the key with me today, and I can open it whenever I go to work but doing so won’t change anything. The women in our region are not equally treated like the ones in other regions, particularly those in urban areas”, Lokaj said. Furthermore, she said that women of 36 villages of Dragash Municipality should travel at least 60 kilometers to even receive a hormonal treatment.
“I do not understand, then, why we have a midwifery secondary school? Why does the faculty offer midwifery studies in the first place? If there is no job for midwives, then why are we preparing professionals in this field?”, she added.
On the other hand, Igballe Rogova, Executive Director of KWN, said that women’s health is one of the items of KWN strategy, and KWN has worked a lot over the years towards this goal, by sending notes to the media, providing recommendations concerning laws, and publishing research reports.
       They also discussed about functional maternity hospitals which must be taken as an example, and the one of Podujeva was mentioned as being one of them.
In addition, the participants shared other information concerning the situation of other maternity hospitals, such as the one of Kaçanik, Istog, and their challenges. The meeting included discussions and debates until it came to an end.
As a result, three main recommendations were provided:
  • Kosovo Midwife Association should be included in all working groups discussing and rendering decisions for all legal acts and by-laws concerning midwives and their profession;
  • Gynecologists being sent by the Ministry of Health to all maternity hospitals lacking gynecologists would make it possible that such maternity hospitals be operationalized as soon as possible, along with the midwives’ job description and competencies on the basis of health levels.

 

Kosovo Program for Gender Equality working group meets for the second workshop

Kosovo Women’s Network (KWN) attended the second workshop on drafting the Kosovo Program for Gender Equality, organized by the Agency for Gender Equality. The second round of workshop discusses the women’s rights, access to justice, and security. While the drafting process started in October 2017, the third workshop is expected to be organized this March.
       Agency for Gender Equality (AGE), based on Article 11 of Law on Gender Equality, was obliged to start drafting the Kosovo Program for Gender Equality (KPGE) – a strategical document of the Government of Kosovo, which sets forth the goals, measures, and main actors bearing the responsibility for the achievement of gender equality in all domains of social, economic, political, education, health, and cultural spheres for both women and men in Kosovo during the period from 2017 until 2021.
       In its first workshop, the working group drafting this document, which includes KWN members, discussed, over the span of six days, the meeting, analysis, and provision of necessary information during and until the end of the finalization process of the Kosovo Program for Gender Equality and Action Plan. The Document is divided into three pillars: Economic empowerment and social welfare; human development; decisionmaking and representation, women, peace and security. The workshops are supported by the Swedish Government, Swedish International and Development Agency (SIDA).