Prishtina, 14 March, 2023
The Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, participated today in the open discussion “Equality, Equity and Justice” within the Women’s Week, organized by the National Democratic Institute with the support of the American Agency for International Development and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.
The Prime Minister expressed his gratitude for this opportunity and for this open conversation on this issue, as he called it, so important. He said that in addition to opinions, analysis, research and decisions, conviction and values are very important in policy making, so he believes that there can be no democracy without gender equality.
Regarding the situation in Kosovo regarding gender equality, the prime minister believes that it is improving and that the improvement is faster than ever before, although he pointed out that there is still a lot of work to be done.
Further, he underlined that we cannot have social equality without gender equality, therefore gender equality is what actually constitutes the bridge of social equality and democracy.
The Prime Minister emphasized three issues that are very important for moving forward in terms of gender equality: the cultivation and maintenance of centers of gender solidarity, social emancipation with an emphasis on the emancipation of men and perhaps from early childhood, and the deeper treatment of consequences of the war.
“I believe that in a way even we who have been saved, have not been saved, because our experiences have been deposited. In the 80s and 90s more than half of the population in Kosovo in one form or another passed through the hands of the police, military and paramilitary forces of Serbia and these two decades of the 20th century are full untreated trauma”, said the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister also spoke about universality that emphasizes what is common and not what distinguishes us, and about equality in the sense that no matter why we are different we should be equal.
“Equality is proven precisely by being different. You respect the difference, but we have equal treatment”, he said, among other things.
In the context of the discussion, the prime minister also answered the questions and interest of the participants about various issues related to gender equality, the Government’s work on improving legislation in this area and various topics related to the executive.
Last modified: March 14, 2023