Violence against women has increased in Kosovo, suggesting that postwar trauma has added yet another threat to women’s safety. Domestic violence is still not considered a crime in Kosovo, and lawyers are often reluctant to take cases that target husbands for wife beating and rape. “Violence on women has deep roots in the Kosovar Albanian society, where force is respected, beating is a kind of education and shutting up, an unwritten rule,” remarked Rachel Wareham, a writer of a U.N. sponsored report on domestic violence in Kosovo. According to Wareham, a quarter of women in Kosovo have experienced domestic violence in the last two years.
Uncategorized
