Introduction
Women have always taken part in peacebuilding, but at the informal level and in a way invisible to the formal peacemakers and peacekeepers. Quantitative Analysis of Women’s Participation in Peace Processes conducted by L. Stone in 2015 has shown that peace processes that included women as witnesses, signatories, mediators, and/or negotiators demonstrated a 20% increase in the probability of a peace agreement lasting at least two years. This increases over time, with a 35% increase in the probability of a peace agreement lasting 15 years.
Acknowledging the vital role of women in peacemaking, the United Nations Security Council issued several resolutions on the women, peace, and security agenda. Resolutions 1325 (2000), 2122 (2013) and 2493 (2019) are directly calling for including a higher percentage of women in the peacebuilding process. Although there is a solid international legislative basis for women’s active participation in the reconciliation process, their role is still confined to the informal sphere, encompassing individual activism and engagement within civil society organizations. Simultaneously, negotiation teams continue to be predominantly composed of men. Only one woman, Edita Tahiri, had the chance to be a permanent part of the negotiation team and become a chief negotiator of the Kosovo delegation (2011-2017). Other women took part in the reconciliation process as peace activists in their own countries, members of civil society organizations conducting projects aimed at reconciliation between the two communities in Kosovo, or as organizers, facilitators, or participants in joint projects designed to bring (young) women from Kosovo and Serbia together.
Women’s initiatives during the pre-war and wartime
An illustrative example of the anti-war activism is the women’s feminist, antimilitarist peace organization Women in Black in Serbia, founded in 1991, that actively protested against war in Kosovo, apartheid against the Albanian population in Kosovo, and eventually organized actions against the persecution of the non-Albanian population in Kosovo. They organized street protests using specific anti-war aesthetics: mourning—wearing black clothes as a symbol of the death of all victims of war and violence; silence in public space as an act of condemnation of all who generate war and violence; and the body—exposure in public places is an act of civil disobedience and anti-patriarchal rebellion. Women in Black were also supporting Albanian women and their initiatives. Albanian women from Kosovo took part in several international Women in Black meetings held in Serbia, and they have also participated in the protests against Slobodan Milošević in Belgrade.
The nature of women’s activism in Kosovo had more pragmatic goals. According to the activities of women’s civil society organizations active in the conflict period listed in the Seat at the Table publication dealing with the participation of women in the peace process in Kosovo, most of the Albanian women’s organizations were acting in providing education or healthcare. In addition to that, during the war period, women’s organizations were active in organizing peaceful demonstrations, in translating the news into English, but also in diplomatic lobbying; e.g., at the Fourth World Conference on Women, a delegation from Kosovo prepared and presented a report highlighting human rights violations occurring in Kosovo at the time. At the same time, there was no political and societal activity among Serbian women in Kosovo noted in this period other than delivering humanitarian aid. In other words, women’s activism in Kosovo during the war was not primarily directed at reconciliation but rather at addressing concrete problems faced by the community and fighting for human rights.
Women’s initiatives in the field of human rights
Since I believe that confronting the past is a necessary condition for reconciliation, I would like to highlight the work of two anti-war activists dealing with human rights abuse: Nataša Kandić and Sonja Biserko. Nataša Kandić founded the Humanitarian Law Center in Belgrade in 1992 with the aim of documenting all human rights violations in former Yugoslavia in order to establish criminal responsibility for perpetrators, achieve justice, and prevent the recurrence of crimes. As part of their work, they are currently working on the Kosovo Memory Book, an initiative to document every individual case of death or disappearance between 1998 and 2000. Since 1997, the Humanitarian Law Center also has had an office in Pristina. Sonja Biserko is the chairperson of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, who also has extensive work on documenting human rights abuses in the former Yugoslavia, including Kosovo. Both women were awarded several significant international human rights and peace awards.
Feminist Approach to Reconciliation and Transitional Justice
Given that they were unable to significantly influence, or formally participate in, the mainstream negotiation process, women chose to establish parallel initiatives. Women in Black from Serbia and the Kosova Women’s Network formed the Women’s Peace Coalition on 7 May 2006. The aim of the coalition was to put women on the map of the negotiation process. Thus, they started their work by issuing a statement on cultural heritage, which was followed by a letter to and a meeting with Martti Ahtisaari. Members of the coalition also organized two conferences, Women, Peace, and Security, in Struga (North Macedonia) in 2006 and 2007. During the second conference, the representatives of Women in Black offered a public apology for the war crimes committed in their names. The apology was broadcasted at the Kosovan TV station RTV 21. However, none of the activities managed to put the participants of the Coalition on Track I of the peacebuilding process.
In light of their dissatisfaction with prevailing judicial practice, Women in Black decided to introduce alternative judicial practices and, together with women’s organizations from all former republics, established the Women’s Court for the Former Yugoslavia. The first women’s court was held in Sarajevo and gathered 36 women, who witnessed it, including 5 women from Kosovo, and over 500 spectators. Unlike regular courts, the women’s court does not deliver judgments but public condemnations and puts pressure on national and international institutions. It can also collect evidence for further legal actions or initiate measures against alleged perpetrators. The court uses a specific methodology that combines subjective elements such as women’s testimony with objective analysis of the context where violence took place. Although women’s court doesn’t deal with war crimes in a legally binding way, it offers a restorative approach to justice, leading to acknowledgment of harm and collective healing.
Women’s Initiatives’ Contributions to Interethnic Peacebuilding
After the end of the war, several civil society organizations led by women were open in Northern and Southern Mitrovica with the aim to establish cooperation between the Albanian and the Serbian community (Community Building Mitrovica, The Women’s Centre). Regardless of the lack of trust between two communities in the beginning, CBM continues their work until today and organizes joint projects for both communities. Following their work, a new multiethnic organization was formed in Mitrovica, Mitrovica Women Association for Human Rights. MWAHR association is active in work with women and youth, and one of the main goals of the organization is to increase women’s influence in reconstructing a new peace narrative after the war. Another way of interethnic feminist cooperation continued happening within the Women’s Network of Kosova—women from Albanian organizations visited non-Albanian (mostly Serbian) women who thrived to start their organization and empowered them to start CSOs and join the network.
Joint initiatives for women from Serbia and Kosovo
The success of the initiatives that brought women from Albanian and Serbian communities in Kosovo together caused two types of reactions. First, international CSOs understood the need for more joint projects for Serbian and Albanian women. Kvinna till Kvinna has supported the Feminist Spring School organized by Artpolis and Alternative Center for Girls Prishtina every year since 2014, and OSCE has been organizing an annual Dialogue Academy for Young Women from Belgrade and Pristina since 2015. Both initiatives are bringing young women from Kosovo and Serbia together for short-term learning opportunities.
Second, regional CSOs became aware of the role women’s initiatives played in establishing the dialogue between communities as a step to reconciliation and started advocating for women’s participation more actively. In 2013 a group of local women’s organizations (MWAHR, Women in Black, Kosova’s Women Network) supported by the Swedish organization Kvinna till Kvinna wrote a letter to Catherine Ashton High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, EEAS, Brussels asking for women to be included in the current dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, thoroughly elaborating their potential contribution. Since, there were no significant changes in the women’s participation on track 1, Youth Initiative for Human Rights Belgrade called for more women’s voices to be involved in the process of normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia on 8th March 2023 together with 28 other organizations and individuals. MWAHR had a similar campaign with several regional women’s organizations from Serbia in 2024.
Conclusion
We examined various ways of contribution of women’s initiatives to the reconciliation process during war and in post-war processes. Their contribution was and remains evident and significant, both in anti-war activism and in bringing two societies closer, as well as relevant in pragmatic tasks during the war. Women’s initiatives are recognized by local CSOs, encouraged by UN resolutions, and often rewarded with peace and human rights awards. At the same time, they continue to be limited to the informal sphere (Track II of the peacebuilding process). Despite evidence that women’s inclusion improves the prospects for lasting peace and a legal basis for their participation, women from Serbia and Kosovo remain excluded from Track I peace negotiations.
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Websites of organizations:
Community Building Mitrovica: https://www.cbmitrovica.org/
Humanitarian Law Center: https://www.hlc-rdc.org/en/about-us/
MWAHR: https://mwahr.org/
[1] This designation is without prejudice to the final status of Kosovo and is in line with Resolution 1244 (1999) UNSC and the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the unilateral declaration of independence.
