OSCE Kosovo Mission helps get women involved in local politics

Although women make up more than half of Kosovo's population, one wouldn't guess it from their low level of participation in political and public life. According to Muradije Shehu from "Hareja" (Albanian for "joy"), a women's non-governmental organization (NGO), deeply-rooted stereotypes about gender roles and the resulting discrimination are at the root of the problem.

Rural problems

"Many people believe that women belong in the kitchen, while men are meant for business and politics," Shehu says. "The situation is worse in rural areas and small towns, where women can aspire to become blue-collar workers at best."

Shehu's NGO is active in the Prizren region, in southern Kosovo, and its aim is to increase the employability of women through vocational training. But Shehu also sees political empowerment as a way forward. "We need more women in political decision-making positions so that they can influence change for the better," she says.

A big part of the problem is that gender-based discrimination has only been discussed centrally, in Prishtine/Pristina, while its effects are mostly felt locally, in rural areas.

Meeting at the local level

To help raise the profile of women locally, on 9 May 2008, the OSCE Mission in Kosovo helped organize a roundtable on enabling women's participation in public and political life, held in Rahovec/Orahovac municipality just north of Prizren.

"Our aim was to bring together women from all segments of society and agree on concrete recommendation to improve the position of women in our municipality," says Katarina Grbesa, a member of the OSCE Mission's municipal team in Rahovec/Orahovac.

The roundtable was organized in co-operation with the Municipal Office for Gender Equality, which will help implement the recommendations. It brought together women's NGOs, female Kosovo Assembly members from Rahovec/Orahovac, as well as female municipal councillors.

"We discussed the issues that concern all of us," says Vesna Mitasevic, from the women's association "Jefimije" from the neighbouring village of Veliha Hoca/Hoca e Madhe.

While Mitasevic is a Kosovo Serb and Shehu is a Kosovo Albanian, both say they face the same discrimination as women, which is why they are both working for gender equality. They quote statistics from the United Nations Development Programme showing that in Kosovo, which has an unemployment rate of 43 per cent, only one in four jobs are occupied by women.

What's to be done?

The main recommendations from the meeting include the following:

• NGOs should offer training to women who are already involved in municipal work in order to improve their rhetorical and lobbying skills;
• roundtable participants should jointly request from the municipality a gradual increase in the number of women working in the executive bodies and in decision-making positions;
• the municipality and NGOs should organize meetings with business owners from the region to promote the employment of equally qualified women; and 
• following the mid-year budget review, a municipal fund should be created to support municipal and NGO outreach to women in rural areas.

Habibe Haxhimustafa, municipal gender officer, says that although the recommendations are ambitious, they are not unachievable. "We have to stay committed to our goals and we will eventually get there."

A joint effort

The OSCE Mission will help directly with the recommendation on training, and will also monitor the municipality's implementation of the other recommendations. Adem Kollari, another OSCE municipal team member, notes that the municipal Deputy Assembly President will also lobby for the recommendations at the Assembly's sessions.

"Nevertheless," says Haxhimustafa, "women councillors and municipal employees will be crucial in promoting equal opportunities and an end to discrimination."

The efforts in Rahovec/Orahovac are some of the first in Kosovo aimed at mobilizing women at the municipal level. The only mechanism at the moment that encourages greater political participation of women in Kosovo is a 30 per cent gender quota in the electoral system.

The quota, however, is far from reality. Out of some 350 directors in municipalities across Kosovo, only two are women. "This is why women councillors elected to the municipal and Kosovo assemblies should constantly lobby for women's rights," Shehu says. "And the rest of us should support them."