Reflections on ROLX
in Kosovo
Victoria Hayes
Working with the Women’s Safety and Security
Initiative in Kosovo has been a very interesting and educational experience for
me. I’ve truly enjoyed the work and feel
that my work has been useful for both WSSI and myself. Essentially, my job was to assist in
preparing Kosovo’s National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking for
2008-2011. My work included:
·
Researching relevant
background documents on trafficking in human beings and violence against women
in Kosovo and the greater
·
Analyzing Kosovo’s
existing legal framework for combating human trafficking and producing a policy
document with recommendations on the legal framework, including comparative
analysis with the legal frameworks in other South-East European states, as well
as European Union member-states;
·
Researching the
execution of the Kosovo National Action Plan 2005-2007, identifying weaknesses
and failures in its execution and providing recommendations and objectives for
the 2008-2011 NAP, based on reports from Kosovo’s Civil Society, the United
States Department of State’s 2008 Trafficking in Persons Report, and
international organizations;
·
Compiling
above-mentioned research and analysis to create an informational packet for
distribution to the Working Groups that strategized on and drafted the
2088-2011 National Action Plan;
·
Attending the NAP
Working Groups and additional relevant meetings; and
·
Proofreading and
finalizing the English-language translation of the 2008-2011 National Action
Plan submitted to the Kosovo Government.
First Impressions:
When I first arrived in Kosovo, I
was very surprised at how quickly everything happened, despite such a relaxed
environment. My supervisor had arranged for a taxi to pick my boyfriend and I
up from the airport and take us to our new apartment. She had mentioned that she would arrange a taxi, but had not mentioned where it would be
taking us. I had assumed to the UNDP
office, but instead we were taken to an apartment. It took all of about 5 minutes to sign a
lease for the apartment and move in. The
next day, I met with Nita Luci, WSSI’s Project
Advisor, and Michael Warren, the Programme Specialist
for UNDP’s Rule of Law Program, and we quickly signed all the forms I needed
and then slowly enjoyed coffee and cigarettes for the next hour or so. And that was that—everything was taken care
of. I soon learned that this is how
everything works in Kosovo—the people seem to have a very casual laid-back
attitude, but when there is a task to be accomplished, they kick into high gear
until the task has been accomplished at which point the casual attitude can be
resumed.
I was
impressed by how developed Pristina is, how easy it
is for a foreigner to get around, and how difficult it is for a foreigner to
try and learn Albanian. I knew that Pristina was an international community, but was surprised
none-the-less. I was also surprised by
just how much they love Americans here. In
previous travels I’ve never encountered blatant anti-Americanism, but I have
also never encountered people wanting to shake my hand or give me a high-five
simply because I was American, as I encountered in Kosovo. The people struck me as incredibly friendly
and intelligent and, although they often dwelled on their nation’s
past difficulties, eager for Kosovo to really be its own nation.
Work Environment:
Working
in the
On
slow days, the project team would leave the office to sit at a café, enjoying
the coffee and the weather. Because a
lot of my work was researching and reading articles and reports, there was
always more work I could be doing,
and at the beginning I wasn’t sure if I should be taking relaxed hours like the
rest of the office. But,
the long coffee and cigarette breaks were part of the Kosovo experience, and
they were always a great opportunity for me to learn more about Kosovo’s
history and culture in general.
Our conversations would range from abortion laws to views on
homosexuality to gun laws, which really helped me to develop a better picture
of both Kosovo today and Kosovo under the Yugoslav reign.
My Work
I
could not have asked for better work assignments at WSSI. My work consisted chiefly of researching,
analyzing, and writing, which is exactly what I love to do. WSSI was in charge of the technical support
for the drafting of Kosovo’s 2008-2011 NAP and I was in charge of providing
packets of information for the Working Groups that would draft the NAP. Initially, I was not quite sure what I was
supposed to be doing. Nita asked me to
write a document analyzing Kosovo’s laws related to human trafficking and why
we need the laws. Fair enough, but there
were already reports from other agencies that had written about this too, so I
was worried that I wouldn’t be able to write anything that was original. Then I realized that I wasn’t expected to
write anything unique; I was expected to put together a readable document
compiling the analysis and recommendations from others and incorporating my own
thoughts, so that the members of the Working Groups would have access to these
ideas without, themselves, having to read through multiple documents. Accordingly, I read through many reports,
compiled their thoughts, incorporated my own, and included examples of
legislation from other countries.
I liked the first document I produced, but was unsure
if it was exactly what WSSI was looking for, so I sent a copy to Nita and asked
for her thoughts. Nita read it, loved
it, and sent it off for translation.
(Another example of how fast things move here. I had expected to get a critique from Nita
and then improve my work before anything happened, but that is not really how
it works here.) Nita and Nazlie asked for my input on what other documents would be
useful for the Working Groups. My
thoughts were that victim/witness protection was key,
regulating media coverage was interesting but less important, and that charts
on activities and progress of the previous NAP would be useful. They agreed and I was free to work on
these. I realized that Nita and Nazlie planned to look over everything I produced, but that
they trusted my judgment and expected me to just dive in and create a packet of
useful information. I enjoyed both the
freedom and the responsibility that this gave me and undertook the task as
though I was actually going to be writing the NAP, collecting as much relevant
information as was possible to guide the process.
The Working Groups
The Working Groups were the
highlight of my summer because it gave me the opportunity to really see
Kosovars in action. Representatives from
civil society, the police, border control, and the government spent 10 days in
Durres, Albania, strategizing together to create the first draft of the new
NAP. It was great to see how involved
everyone was and to hear the different perspectives on trafficking in Kosovo,
how to combat it, and how to approach the drafting of the NAP. In reality, there was a lot of chaos because
so many of the participants came with their own ideas and agendas without much
thought to the bigger picture. This
makes sense, of course, because, for example, why would a representative from a
shelter for victims of trafficking have spent time thinking about the
development of the overall NAP?
The representatives from the
government and ministries, who are the ones who really have to take
responsibility for the NAP, came with ideas about the bigger picture and
developing the NAP, but they had to listen to what all the other participants
said and let them develop the new NAP with just guidance from them. It was exciting for me to have these
representatives referring to the information I had put together for them and to
see that they had the same idea as me: identify the failures from the previous
NAP, work on improving them, and incorporate new ideas. Most other people seemed to want to start
from scratch. I don’t think they
actually wanted to start from scratch, but they just weren’t interested in
looking at the previous NAP and instead wanted to simply promote their own
ideas. For me, hearing everyone’s
thoughts and watching the chaos was exciting and interesting, but for the representatives
of the ministries it was a headache.
After dinner each day, I usually spent a couple of hours talking with
the ministry representatives who would laugh at me for calling the day “fun”
and tease me for being an “academic.” I
agreed with their frustrations; of course, we needed to really focus on the NAP
and not just everyone’s individual wishes, but, since the NAP wasn’t my
responsibility, I was able to enjoy the chaos during the day because I was
learning from it.
The
Working Groups were divided into three groups:
Prevention, Protection, and Prosecution.
The Prosecution Group was the least chaotic because its members were
organized and more respectful toward one another. The head of the Trafficking in Human Beings
Unit of the Kosovo Police Service really impressed me with his knowledge,
input, and thoughts. I think this group
had to be the most organized because they are the group where cooperation and
an action plan are the most necessary.
When it comes to prevention and protection, NGOs are going to continue
their campaigns and work without an action plan because that is what on their
own agenda; they just need to ensure funding for their work. The police, border patrol, judges, and
prosecutors, on the other hand, have the real responsibility of dealing with
actual trafficking, which makes their strategizing and cooperation key. I don’t mean to say that prevention and
protection are less important, but it is easier for everyone to agree that, for
example, there should be campaigns focused on educating girls about the risk of
being trafficked and there should be shelters for the victims, than it is to
agree on how the police and prosecutors should investigate and charge someone
who is simultaneously a victim of trafficking and also a ringleader recruiting
girls for trafficking.
The
Action Plan
On
July 31st, the Kosovo government approved the new NAP. This was a great success for everyone who put
their time and effort into the NAP, especially the WSSI team. Although not every actor involved in the
drafting was completely satisfied with the final result (either because they
thought certain provision should or should not have been included or because
they thought more time should have been put into the drafting), the NAP is a
“living document” that will be updated continuously. Everyone at the Working Groups were very
committed to combating human trafficking and I am confident that they will
continue in their efforts, making the NAP successful in achieving its goals and
objectives.
Final Thoughts
Working in Kosovo has been very
interesting because of Kosovo’s unique position as a newly independent state,
albeit one under UN administration. The
international influence seems both positive and negative. On the one hand, obviously, the international
presence was necessary for Kosovo to establish itself as an independent
nation. On the other hand, the
international presence seems to have caused a lot of apathy among Kosovars (I
noticed this with university students, in particular) who don’t feel like they
will ever truly have the opportunity to govern themselves and who feel
disenfranchised by the approach that has been taken. Plus, the confusion about who is actually in
charge can cause problems. The people I
worked with seemed quite hopeful and quite excited about the Kosovar government
taking ownership of Kosovo now. Many
people expressed hope that now that Kosovo is an actual state, many of the
previous excuses for not working on infrastructure will fade and there will be
more progress.
My experience in Kosovo was limited
to what is happening in Pristina, among basically the
elite and the international community, who, of course, take the villages and
the average Kosovars into consideration, but cannot really represent what the
situation in the rest of Kosovo is. Many
of the internationals and many of the Kosovars who work with the international
community seem to have different ideas about where Kosovo is development-wise,
what is happening in Kosovo, and what is best for Kosovo, so I can only imagine
that the further away you get from the UN administration-focused view of the
country, the more the perspectives change.
I would like to see Kosovo less as a
national Kosovo-Albanian state, but I understand that given the country’s past
it is difficult for people, Albanian, Serbian, and others both in and out of
the region, to refrain from viewing it as such.
It seems that it will be impossible to ever view Kosovo as anything but
an Albanian nation, despite attempts to include minorities in the country’s
activities. I think a lot of these
attempts are nothing more than words; in general, it did not appear that anyone
was truly interested in including Serbians, or the Romas,
Ashkalis, Egyptians, or any other minority
group. I say this because many people,
who claimed that they would really like to see a better representations of the
Serbian population in the government, police, etc., would attribute the lack of
Serbians in these areas to laziness, stubbornness, or some other undesirable
characteristic of the Serbians. There is
so much underlying anger on each side that even people who I considered
extremely intelligent would make ethnically-biased comments about the Serbian
population in Kosovo.
Overall, I really enjoyed my
experience and am quite hopeful about the future of Kosovo. Everyone I worked with seemed extremely
intelligent and dedicated toward their work, and even the university students
who I met who felt disenfranchised still amazed me with their intelligence and
their ideas about Kosovo’s situation. It
will definitely be interesting to see how Kosovo develops over time and I hope
to be involved again in the future.