Is awareness of the reporting of sexual harassment on jobs in Kosovo increasing?

As a result, victims find themselves in similar situations, which according to psychologists, the most frequent diagnosiss are depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. Some research has even found that sexual harassment, especially at its beginnings, can cause long - term depressive symptoms.

Sexual harassment at Kosovo workplaces

Based on a research done by the Kosovo Women's Network, “gender-based discrimination and employment in Kosovo” among job discriminations, sexual harassment has been reported. As to this, RGK considers the findings disturbing because despite the large figures of harassment, only 4 percent of all had reported them to authorities.

Most of those surveyed who had suffered sexual harassment had confessed this to their friend (41%), colleague (28%), or family member (21%). And the “percent of men who had reported sexual harassment cases to managers was larger than that of women (12%)”, says research done. The reasons why the cases were not reported to institutions are different, the answers both “had not wanted”, “we had to take care of ourselves”, have high numbers in both men and women. And although compared with these figures, silence because of the fear of losing a job is smaller, it still remains disturbing. There are 21 percent of women and 13 percent of men who have been silent for this reason.

Sexual harassment under Kosovo Penal Code

Already specifically in the Penal Code of the Republic of Kosovo, the work “sexual harassment”, which entered into force in 2019 which had never existed before. In Article 183 of the Penal Code, sexual harassment is considered any form of unwanted verbal, nonverbal or physical behavior of sexual nature with the aim of violating dignity or violating one's dignity, creating an environment that is objectively frightening, hostile, degrading, or degrading.

So according to this article, anyone who sexually molests the other person, particularly the person who is sensitive because of age, illness, disability, addiction, pregnancy, severe physical or mental disability, is sentenced to fine or imprisonment for up to three years.

In contrast, the third paragraph of this article envisions a six - month sentence of up to three years for those in positions of authority over others.

Citizen awareness of this kind of harassment

Adelina Tarshan, from the Kosovo Women's Network, shows what are some forms of sexual harassment that could happen to someone, actions that could even lead to sexual violence against the victim.

Some forms of sexual harassment are: Questions, remarks, or sexual jokes without the will of the person, reference to words such as honey, heart, eye, mouth, flash, etc., whistles in the street, posting photos without the person's permission on the Internet, violent pressure for sexual favor, touch, bite, push, support for the person's body, without his permission, sexual appearance and gestures without the person's will, sending letters, phone calls without the person's will, pressure to come together (for coffee, lunch, etc.), etc.

She says that although there is increased awareness in recent years, some forms of this kind of harassment among citizens still remain unclear, thus making information about this phenomenon very necessary.

“citizens are generally aware that when harassed, but the lack of consciousness points to some specific forms of harassment, such as obtaining favour in exchange for sexual benefits that form based on the Women's Network report, only 16.8% of the population have considered sexual harassment. So even though consciousness has increased over the past few years, all of it gets caught in the lack of reporting of cases in relevant institutions, which made clear the need for more information and empowerment”, the activist says.

Based on research that has been done so far, women and girls are the main target of harassment. Tarshan says that RGK has provided legal assistance to several cases reported on workplace harassment.

Many times, women and girls in Kosovo are victims of sexual harassment at the workplace, and this has a lot of impact on their performance at work, lack of security in the workplace, etc. We have offered legal assistance and monitored many reported cases of sexual harassment in the workplace, thus helping women and girls report as much of this form of gender discrimination at work as possible and that institutional response to such cases is serious and priority”.

At the end of the Kosovo human rights activist requires women and girls to report as much as they can on this type of violation. Thus, there would be a public and private space where women would not be violated by their dignity. /Work Academy