Offensive language and online violence against women in politics has been present on online portals and social networks in Kosovo quite often. Questions like what are the challenges that women in Kosovo politics are facing? Were discussed in this Tuesday’s salon with the main topic:Online violence against women in politics: What measures can we take?
During this discussion it was pointed out that Kosovar society manifests violence not only physically but verbally as well, and the issue is that instead of dealing with the the prevention of the violence it deals with the consequences of any type of violence against women in general.
Another challenge of this phenomenon in Kosovo is the fact that online violence against women is not conemned, in which case it was highlited that there should be an institution or mechanizm to prevent this offensive language published online as well as offensive comments.
Moreover it was pointed out that there are only a few studies and debates that deal with offensive language that attacks not only women in politics but women as public figures in general. There are many ways that violence against women is manifested, therefore, the number of women reporting one another for violence is conserning.
Another issue emphasized is the fact that some media, especially, political figures have a biased mindset leaning more to the patriarchal side, the result of lack of information and discussion of this topic amongst institutions and people, they are responsible to pay attention and be careful of the language they use towards their colleagues.
Part of this panel were: Naile Dema Selmani, reporter at Klan Kosova and Member of the Board in the Association of Journalists of Kosovo (AGK), Pranvera Lipovica, Program Director at NDI Kosovo, Sibel Halimi, Spokesperson/Member of the Presidency Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), and Eliza Hoxha, deputy in the Assembly of Kosovo from the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK). This salon was moderated by Besnik Krasniqi, editor at Koha Group, while the editorial was written by Getoarbë Mulliqi, Executive Director at AGK.
This salon is supported by the National Institute for Democracy NDI Kosovo and USAID Kosovo within the project “Fighting misinformation and restoring citizens’ trust in the media”.
