Women's interest in becoming part of KSF

Women's interest in becoming part of the Kosovo Security Force has marked growth in recent years.

Halime Morina, chief of the Union for Human Rights and Gender Equality at the Ministry for the Security Force of Kosovo, in a statement for Radio Free Europe said that from 2009 to 2015, The KSF has continued with the recruiting process, with cases in 2018 observed an increase in women's interest by 3 percent for joining KSF.

“in 2015 has been completed the recruiting campaign for active members in the Kosovo Security Force, based on the statistics of the staff department at the Ministry of Kosovo Security from 2009 to 2018, the number of women and girls has increased markedly from 3% in 2009 to about 9% in 2018 “, Halimi said.

According to Halim, women serving at the KSF hold different degrees, but the highest is the brigade general rank.

The number of women and girls at the Kosovo Ministry of Force and Security is 274 or expressed in percentages, about 9.67 percent. While the number of women in uniform is 221, of them 13 cadets and members of the KSF reserve component. As we talk about degrees, the highest rank is Brigadier General”.

“Strikes at KSF hold important positions at the command level, as commander of the doctrine command and exercise, company commander, other platoon commander. The number of female officers is 22 or 6.21% within the total number of officers at KSF”, Halimi said.

While, Rudina Jakupi, a researcher from the Kosovar Centre for Security Studies, told Radio Free Europe that representation of women in the Kosovo Security Force is at good level, but according to her, it has yet to be worked for women serving at KSF to have career hikes.

I think that representation of women in the security sector, namely at KSF, is at a satisfactory level. So far, as I have information, the participation of women in KSF is about 8 percent. However, while I think that this percentage is at a satisfactory level, there is always room for improvement, and I think that a much larger focus should be given on the point of raising women to career, meaning within the KSF should be a little more devoted and to giving little more attention to creating mechanisms, even though not positive discrimination so that women can have a little more career lift and promotion within the “force, Jakup said.

According to Jakupi, the women who choose to work in this security sector must create mechanisms and conditions for them to be better accommodated there.

“Must create mechanisms and conditions for women not to feel insecure within the place of their work and feel secure at certain operational levels within the KSF here, including physical training”, she said.

The Ministry for the Kosovo Security Force per year recruits even new screws for the KSF University Studies Centre, with cases this year out of 31 women who have been competing have been selected 4.

The Kosovo Security Force is in the final phase of transition. It is expected that during December, this force will gain additional capacities, giving it a gradual mandate towards becoming Kosovo's military. (REL)