2 August 2001

FICSA Update No. 40 2001

    Gender and UN/OSCE Missions in Kosovo: Please do Better

  • A new 40-page report (in English) has been published by the independent Swedish NGO Kvinna Till Kvinna Foundation. Titled "Getting It Right? - A Gender Approach To UNMIK Administration In Kosovo" the report gives concrete recommendations on how gender sensitivity in UN/OSCE post-conflict Field Missions can be radically improved in the future.

  • Experience shows that it is very difficult to get senior Mission staff and Heads of Missions (HOMs) to take gender issues seriously. Those responsible for choosing HOMs and senior staff should choose people for these positions in a gender-mainstreamed way, allowing more women into senior positions and promoting the men who are gender-sensitive. Actions like these would strengthen gender as a serious issue.

  • With the entry of the international administration, the women's organisations and women activists not only had to struggle against the more conservative powers in their own society but also against the prejudices of many international officials who were only too willing to listen to the more conservative and extreme voices about Kosovar culture and society.

  • A working group on the region's widespread domestic violence was led by a male, and he invited a male Kosovar Albanian family law professor to be the meeting's expert, who "quickly established that in Kosovo it would be unthinkable to forbid all kinds of domestic violence and that only the more severe 'battering' should be classified as a crime". This "was immediately taken up by the male international participants in the working group as the final word on Kosovar society". When one of the female participants tried to point out that human rights are equal to both sexes, she was hushed up by one of the male participants with the words "We have already spoken to the local population and they have explained that Kosovo is not ready to grant women full rights".

  • As development assistance generally does not consider the gender bias that systematically devalues women, women's work, and women's influence in nearly all societies, the actions taken often make the gender inequality permanent or worse.

  • (In Kosovo) there was an apparent absence of gender-sensitive women or men in high positions. Unfortunately, it appears that no-one among the professional staff in the Office of Gender Affairs has actually had any specific background in gender work before their appointment in UNMIK.

  • There is an account of the Head of Mission sending a Mission staff member to Beijing + 5 to represent Kosovar women, widely taken by the other Mission staff and Kosovar women to indicate he felt Kosovar women were not competent to represent themselves.

  • Most of the current gender mechanisms in the international organisations are based on an approach of structural or static solutions to a problem of dynamics and policy. This means Missions tend to consider it sufficient to set up a gender unit or appoint a gender advisor - while getting on with 'business as usual'.

  • The basis for the work of the UN, Resolution 1244, does not make any specific references to gender issues. Nor does the Rambouillet agreement, which also greatly influences the work of UNMIK. Both thereby continue a tradition of gender 'neutrality', something that in practice works against women as women have an unequal point of departure. (This is a key point that women grasp immediately but men don't seem to.)

  • Neither KFOR, UN nor OSCE had any education on trafficking in their training for Mission members.

  • No organisation had any kind of Code of Conduct for their Mission members regarding the exploitation of women subjected to trafficking.

  • The concept of gender-mainstreaming should mean that a gender perspective is part of every policy consideration, be that the design of a public information campaign, the creation of an advisory body, a draft law, or devising reporting guidelines and priorities. That is, the term 'gender-mainstreaming' means exactly the opposite of 'gender specialisation'.

    'Getting It Right' can be obtained by telephoning +46 8 702 98 20, or e-mailing info@iktk.se (or possibly downloaded from www.iktk.se).

    The Kvinna Till Kvinna Foundation addresses the specific needs of women in areas affected by war and conflict and cooperates with women's organisations in the Balkan region and Israel/Palestine.

    Lesley Abdela's report "Kosovo - Opportunities Lost, Lessons Learned" can be downloaded from www.shevolution.com.

    The above information was obtained from Public Services International, a federation of public service workers' unions, of which FICSA is a member. Please visit www.world-psi.org.