September 23, 2018 | Sunday
Amending Family Law: Equal gender rights or economic equality?
EUICC Pristina, 11th of September 2018, 13:30
Probably one of the most controversial and heated discussions in Kosovo, the one on Family Law was brought up at the European Union Information and Cultural Centre in Pristina. The panel discussion “Amending Family Law: Equal gender rights or economic equality?” was held at the EUICC on 11th of September.
Various analysis regarding women’s situation in Kosovo and analysis on the justice system performance show that, apart from the Family Law not properly implemented, there are legal loopholes within the law itself that need to be adjusted.
Luljeta Demolli, Executive Director of the Kosovar Gender Studies Center, during the panel discussion stated that today it is also considered economy the fact that you take care of elder people within your family, altogether with taking care of your family when you are not working.
Luljeta Aliu, civil rights activist and founder of NGO INJECT, Professor Dr. Abdulla Aliu, Senior Expert on Family Law for the EU funded Project Support to the Civil Code of Kosovo and Fatmire Mulhaxha-Kollçaku, deputy at the Kosovo Assembly and member of the Parliamentary Committee on European Integration and the Parliamentary Committee on Health, Labor and Social Welfare joined the panel discussion with remarks on how to create an institutional agenda and unity so that women shouldn’t be going through physical and also economical violence.
Within the panel discussion issues such as LGBT couples and equivalence on divorce also were discussed.
On the other side, the Initiative on Amendment/Clarification of Family Law was accepted and approved by all members of the Legislation Committee and finally voted at the first reading by the Assembly in July 2018.
Fatmire Mulhaxha-Kollçaku, deputy at the Kosovo Assembly and member of the Parliamentary Committee on European Integration and the Parliamentary Committee on Health, Labor and Social Welfare, considered the first reading by the Assembly as a big success and she hopes that changes will be accepted in future readings and Assembly procedures.
The initiative to modify the Family Law in Kosovo aims to empower the position of women within this Law. The work equality within one family would reduce the economic violence towards women, therefore having a direct positive effect on the prevention of psychological and physical violence. This is only one of the remarks that encourages the modifications within the actual Family Law in Kosovo.
“Economic violence against women is a modern form of women enslavement” stated Aliu.
It still remains concerning, as the panellists at EUICC once more noted, that less than 10 percent of women in Kosovo have their own property and the same percentage goes also to women who started entrepreneurships on their own.
The panel was moderated by Adelina Berisha from Kosovo’s Women Network.