Tags:
###Abstract Women’s rights remain one of the key challenges for the development of Kosovo’s society, especially regarding their right to inherit property and participate equally in the economy. The aim of the following article is to provide a reflection on the problems Roma women in Kosovo face in their daily struggle, from knowing their rights to exercising them politically. An examination of their everyday reality demonstrates a lack of implementation of the policies directed toward many areas, including court decisions and representation. Moreover, women in Kosovo continue to bear the burden of culture and tradition, a fact that is evident in their personal attitudes, according to which it is men who are directly responsible for their lack of opportunities. The main objective of this paper is to open an active debate at grassroots, national and academic levels on the main daily obstacles that influence Roma women’s lack of political involvement in the economic sphere, understood broadly as the sphere that assures sustainment and access to equal rights to resources for women in Kosovo. Keywords: female empowerment, political participation, kanun, Roma women’s rights, inequality. ###Why are Roma women not considered as important economic and political contributors in the Kosovo society? The participation of Roma women in decision-making, as well as in economic and political spheres in Kosovo, both in terms of numbers and actual influence, faces many obstacles for different reasons. What are the obstacles? Based on my personal observation and decade-long experience in conducting fieldwork and social research at grassroots levels in direct contact with Roma women in Kosovo, I can confirm that mentality and different forms of knowledge (e.g. illiteracy) are considered to be the main reasons for the limitation of women’s role in decision-making. Many of these obstacles are the consequences of a situation that owes much to the low representation of women in senior positions in the public sector. This is related to the patriarchal mindset, property rights and different types of violations. I will analyze the question of inequality through the theoretical work of J. Butler that very well reflects the situation that makes these lives (lives of Roma women in Kosovo) not seen as equal to other lives. Her essential question in her book 'Precarious Life' is: Who counts as human? Whose lives count as lives? At this point, it is very interesting if we understand Butler’s questions in the perspective of Roma women’s current situation that affects their daily lives and blocks them totally from participating actively in the economy as contributors equal to men, which also stops them from being able to make political decisions as active citizens. My arguments in the rest of this paper is in line with Judith Butler’s understanding of violence. As she writes, 'Violence is surely a touch of the worst order, a way a primary human vulnerability to other humans is exposed in its most terrible way.' Violence is not always to be understood as physical violence only. It can also be found in forms of law, traditions, customs, especially if the law exists, but it is not spoken out. In my understanding, in such cases, what we are witnessing is political inequality of the highest order. It is very crucial for the readers to understand that the notion of knowledge that I use in this article is the political distribution from the point of view of those whose life matters within a social hierarchy, regarding those who are risking their lives by challenging social structures and striving to reorder the effects of knowledge as daily distribution of political power. These systems create obstacles that make Roma women in Kosovo ignorant about what makes for a dignified life and makes them blindly position themselves to an inferior position in society, seeing their situation as normal. Furthermore, in this century, when the major technological developments are happening and civilization is being challenged every day at world context, a production of certain forms of lives makes Roma women in Kosovo see life and this inferior position as normal. Should they reach the level of seeing their own lives from the perspective of self-determination, these women will be seen as 'different', 'weird', and if they are 'wild' enough to contest this situation they might be risking their own lives. Women in Kosovo, including Roma women, fail to exercise their rights over property that belongs to them, such as the right to inheritance. This is due to many factors such as: shame and fear from external physical and psychological attacks from close family members, because of accepting the property after they get married. This practice is old, it is a part of cultural traditions and norms, inherited, also, from Albanians, that is, Albanian law from medieval times known as 'kanun,' which states that only men can own property. It even says that women are subject to men and have no right to inherit. Despite being an insufficient and ignorant custom, 'kanun' was used as an instrument for maintaining this status quo. Yet, although this practice has long been officially obsolete, Roma women do not see the chance to fight for their rights at court. One major reason for this obstacle is the lack of knowledge. Roma women in Kosovo are unaware of their political rights to own and inherit property through the solutions based on a legal framework. When your rights are not your rights A.S., 35, from Pristina , has been constantly living with this internal fear, but has chosen to fight in courts for the last 13 years, confronting her uncle that took a piece of land near the village Slatine that belongs to her. After the death of her father, A. inherited the land, now she wants it, but her uncle keeps it out of her sight. As she says in her words: 'He took all the property that belongs to me'. Her uncle believes that he is right and that this property belongs to him, according to kanun. As the only child, with the right to inheritance, A. has fought on different levels of court for this case throughout many years with no results. Despite the right of inheritance is in her favor, her uncle was never 'institutionally forced' to hand over the property to the real owner. A.’s lawyer, Mr. Anton Ndrecaj, explains that 'This case is also picturing the level of efficiency in the courts of different levels and a direct human rights violation in relation to the respect for the rights of inheritance of women'. She is in the precarious situation, she deserves to own and live a better life.Let us direct our attention, for one moment, to what it must be like to be in A.’s shoes and ask ourselves some questions about how it must feel to live a life in which you do not have what you actually have. Many other Roma women in Kosovo, including widows and divorced women, face being reduced to poverty. Heiresses face the same problem every day, without any institutional support. I strongly argue that identifying the condition of not having the rights of your own, illustrated in the case of A., explains the real picture of the current position and limitations of politics in Kosovo. Only after identifying these limits, we may be able to influence and shape politics in the way it should be understood and practiced, by valuing other lives as equal to ours. ### Violence Against Roma Women From the perspective of Roma Women, after the latest conflict of 1999 in Kosovo, they already indirectly understood that this newly established country created some good forms for the protection of minority communities in order for them to be accepted in the society and that women are protected by law. The main channel of creating this sense of existing rights was acquired by Roma women from receiving different, unexpected visits since 1999 from the international community, researchers and political parties based in Kosovo, expressing their highest interest in 'making their lives better', in exchange for firsthand information on their social conditions, as a primary source to attract and directly benefit from large projects. One important element worth mentioning here is the 'hope' present in the Roma community, as well as expectations from every visitor who comes with an agenda at the beginning and never comes back for what he/she promised in advance. If we view this situation from another perspective, we need to acknowledge that Roma women are continuously providing access to knowledge for these visitors, because, what they know is worthy, it is free of any charge and they are waiting without any power-related expectation, with hope that one of them will keep the promised word. I want to highlight that it is worth considering that Roma women are experts of their own rights, of their lives and of their needs, more than the experts who come to visit them. Could it be fair to ask for justice at this point? Consequently, if the Roma women already know that their rights exist, in this way, you might expect that the Roma women will use these instruments for practicing their own political rights and start establishing power by using this unique opportunity. What do you think, have they done it? The short answer is no, and the more detailed answer is that this reality is happening because no one outside of their circle approached them, for two reasons: first, in the absence of any visible benefit, by simply helping them understand these rights, they either asked them: 'What would you like to do with your life?', or, a second question that follows the first one: 'Why are they conducting this research? As I argue in the introduction, it should be understood that they are dying in silence, generation by generation. To explain these rights to them would mean to make them understand their present situation. Based on this argument, the Roma women’s current social and economic position is highly determined by what the majority, or more powerful social groups consider as appropriate means of change and empowerment. This situation of inequality is linked with the disfavor of their needs, and their ideas not being heard. It is also associated with their levels of education, as mentioned earlier, available possibilities for income generation, and socio-cultural relations and norms in the community (ECMI 2014) .Specifically, the decision-making remains a male domain and norms associated with masculine identity enable violent practices. According to the baseline study 'Study Empowering Minority Communities in Kosovo against Gender-Based Violence', gender-based violence is also made complex by the number of forms of violence it covers, including: domestic, physical, sexual, economic, and psychological violence (including the threat of harm, emotional violence, isolation, abuse of children), as well its particularities during a person’s lifecycle. In one interview, a woman claims that she 'was both married and employed, and had attended lectures on the effects of domestic violence on children: she shared with the rest of the group that, as she said, '60% of children who at one point were victims or witnessed violence, later become perpetrators.' I have personally witnessed generations of Roma children, growing up observing their mothers being abused, especially by their fathers, growing up with a role model of intimate relationships in which one person uses intimidation, shame and violence over the other person, to get their power in life. These victims and their existence are standing just as standing figureheads, not taking any action to exercise their rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution and other national-level policies. Lack of knowledge of economic and political rights Economic empowerment of Roma women in Kosovo is a topic that crosses boundaries and has visibly generated diverse discussions amongst different communities of national and international observatory eyes about the effective functioning of a democratic society. Women, equally to men, have the right to economic development, which helps them to build stronger communities with more stability, take higher decision-making positions in the public sector and reach the target, namely, process, for their representation in public institutions and political parties in Kosovo.Participation of women in decision-making processes, their economic development and undertaking political paths in the public sector in Kosovo has produced many challenges and obstacles over the many decades after the latest Kosovo war of 1999. Women’s rights remain one of the challenges of the Kosovo society, especially regarding minority women’s rights to inherit property and participate equally in the country’s economy. Women’s equal participation, specifically of women coming from marginalized groups, such as Roma, at the local and national level, has been neglected. Some efforts have been undertaken to correct ongoing institutional measures and fill the existing gaps, starting from the local-level elections in 2000. A quota that was represented, which requires 30% of seats in the Assembly of Kosovo and municipal assemblies to be reserved only for female representation . However, apart from being a minority phenomenon, exclusion is also a majority condition, experienced by a wide range of people across many dimensions of life. Exclusion from economic life, social services or civic engagement is a critical development challenge in Kosovo, particularly for Roma women. Among these women, rapidly increasing unemployment rates are not a new story to share. Indeed, it is because of insufficient and limited levels of education, their engagement in low-skilled jobs and lack of opportunities for higher qualifications, poor access to means of family planning and property, lack of liberty, as well as women’s low levels of participation in public and leadership structures, are contributing to their highly discriminated social position. Moreover, for Roma women in Kosovo to be represented and for them to be able to take actions, it is highly necessary that the policy makers create mechanisms that will increase the women’s capacity through training opportunities, in order to be able to exercise their role in leadership, economy and practice political involvement. By accepting this humiliation, as I understand, they continue to receive threats from their social circle if they choose to change the custom and they are powerless, political structures being unable to protect them, they have been unable to fight enough and speak up for their rights for generations so far. Whether this lack of participation is due to a problem of perception, or because women do not possess the necessary level of knowledge, these were the issues which I reflected on, while also I intend to raise public awareness on the importance of the presence of Roma women and their involvement in Kosovo, in exercising their political rights. In the future, we must not continue to accept and tolerate that these women are humiliated and treated as less than human. They must be helped to understand the importance of their lives and rights. This will make them understand their present situation, before they continue dying in silence generation by generation. Only after we identify these limits, we will be able to influence and shape politics, in the way it should be understood and practiced, by valuing the lives of others as equal to ours. ### References * Butler.J. (2006) Precarious Life 'The Powers of Mourning and Violence' London: Verso. * ECMI (2013)Baseline Study – 'Empowering Minority Communities in Kosovo,' Prishtina, Kosovo accessed May 1, 2018 * Gavrani.M. (2018) TV Program 'Mimoza' on the topic 'The right to property inheritance in Kosovo’ Published on Jan 17, 2018 * 'Kallxo' (2016) Newspaper- Prishtina Accessed June 5th 2018 * Klugman.J. (2010) United Nations Programme 'Human Development Report 2010' 20th Anniversary Edition. * Nicoară, M. and Coca-Cozma, M. (2011) 'Our School' Transylvania, Romania * Ranciere.J. (2004) 'Who is the subject of the rights of Man?' by Duke University Press. The South Atlantic Quarterly. * Said.E. (2004) Memory, Inequality, and Power: Israel. Palestine and the Universality of Human Rights.
