What did civil society accomplish during 2022?

The year 2022 was declared the year of disabled persons in Kosovo by the government of the country, and this is seen as a major achievement by Handikos' organisation, which deals with the rights of this category of society in Kosovo.

However, despite the fact that 2022 a year of disabled persons was thought to bring mobilization of institutions to improve conditions for the community, he still faces numerous problems, some of which REL reported during 2022.

According to the 2011 population census, around 77 thousand disabled people live in Kosovo, who are among the main challenges of employment.

Only 99 people working in Kosovo's public institutions are disabled, despite that, according to laws in Kosovo, this number should be over 1,600.

For these reasons, Handikos says about REL that <x0 still holds major challenges, for which much more work needs to be done for the next several years”.

The aim for the coming years has also remained the main requirement of the organisation Centre for Equality and Freedom of LGB Community in Kosovo (CEL) and the Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR): the drafting of a special law to regulate marriage between persons of the same gender.

The Kosovo Assembly has not passed the Civil Billodin, which would enable the drafting of such a law.

“During 2022, one of the achievements has been the organisation of the Crenaria Week and the high share in the activities of Crenaria Week. This, because the Civil Code has been rejected several times in Parliament. So the Crenaria Week remains one of the achievements during 2022”, CEL said of the REL.

Within the framework of Crenaria Week, June 9th in Pristina was held for the sixth time the Crenaria Parade, this time with the motto “also in state and sub-family”.

As in the preceding years, this arrangement went without incident. However, activists have repeatedly demanded that marriage be allowed between persons with the same genders, which the Constitution allows in Kosovo, but not also the Kosovo Civil Code and the Family Law.

The prosecution for the involvement of marriage among persons of the same gender in Kosovo's Civil Code and the ban on hate speech to the LGBTQI+ community are considered the main activities of 2022 and the Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR).

From this organisation, they told the REL that their activities were aimed at “improving the human rights situation in Kosovo, raising citizens' awareness of human rights, and more specifically for the unfavourable position in which the most marginalised groups --” are located.

REL has reported during 2022 how fear of family isolation and society still obliges many members of the LGBTIQ+ community in Kosovo not to publicly express their identity.

discriminated against on various plains in society are women, who make up about half of Kosovo's 1.7 million-strong population. According to data from the Kosovo Statistics Agency, employed are about 15 percent of them.

Among the organisations that have been involved in gender equality during 2022 is the Institute for Development (D4D), which has developed awareness campaigns and projects that help reduce women's unemployment in Kosovo.

The women's participation in the labour market and the economic empowerment of women in Kosovo continue to be one of the most important issues for sustainable social development”, D4D told REL.

To improve women's participation in the labour market, this organisation, among other things, has maintained management training with about 60 women in four municipalities, and has shared five grants for organisations working with inactive women in the labour market.

However, according to Musine Kokalari Institute data, headquartered in Pristina, many women are driven to be inactive in the labour market, the cause of the burden of unpaid work, which means housework and care of family members.

According to the research of the same institute, women spend 6.2 hours a day at home work and family care, and men 3.5 hours.

But, Taulant Hoxha, executive director at the Kosovar Civil Society Foundation (KCSF), estimates a kind of awareness of public opinion about gender-based violence problems and the responsibility of institutions has increased.

Although he says there is still much work to be done until the achievement of gender equality, Hoxha, by organisation K CSF, believes that the year 2022 represents a turning point “in the struggle for gender equality to expand beyond traditional groups that have addressed this problem”.

“In an environment and period when daily political topics dominate public discussion and decision-making agenda, systematic and widespread treatment by the gender-based civil violence society has made the problem so present and demand for accountability and responsibility to take on wider social character”, Hoxha tells Free Europe Radio.

Even this year, however, Kosovo's justice system has been criticised for its failure to address and prevent murder and violence on gender grounds.

Since 2010, 50 women killed by their family members have been reported in Kosovo mainly by spouses. During 2022, three murdered women were reported in Kosovo.

For the murder of Hamide Magash at the end of November, Kosovo Justice Minister Albulen Haxhiu has said it occurred as “following institutional irresponsence”.