Victims or partners? Working with women to rebuild the Balkans

Massive resources have been deployed as the UN Interim Administration in Kosova (UNMIK) and the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe spearhead attempts to rebuild ravaged Balkan societies. Why have post-war reconstruction initiatives treated women as victims rather partners? How can NGOs and the donor community learn to work with local women and their organisations and facilitate their incorporation into decision-making structures?

A gender audit commissioned by the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children and The Urgent Action Fund takes the international community to task while proposing a pathway for mainstreaming gender issues within Balkan policy-making processes.

The main focus of UNHCR work on women’s needs has been the US-funded Kosovo Women’s Initiative. Implemented largely by international NGOs, it missed the opportunity to engage with local women’s NGOs from the outset. While the policy has sensitised health care professionals to sexual and gender-based violence, it has focused on hospitals to the detriment of the primary health care needs of women in rural areas. In education, UNMIK has focused on the guidelines for rebuilding damaged schools but given little priority to girls’ attendance. High drop-out rates for female pupils as a result of post-war trauma remain unaddressed.

UNMIK’s tendency to work with selected male power brokers has disempowered community leaders, local NGOs and wide sections of the community. Funding has been channeled through favoured umbrella groups. Further findings include:

• Delay in establishing a functioning legal system has effectively allowed some existing laws (disadvantageous to women’s rights to child custody and property) to remain in force. The judicial system is not gender-sensitised.
• Being offered stereotypical training such as hairdressing and sewing has constrained the focus from wider options considered by local women’s NGOs.
• Prostitution has increased due to the international presence. While cracking down on traffickers, UNIMIK still permits victims of prostitution to be criminalized.

The extensive set of recommendations includes the need for:

• International agencies to ensure a more acceptable gender balance in their staffing arrangements and enforce some codes of staff conduct.
• Documents to be available in Albanian and Serbian, with translation facilities improved (rather than holding English-only meetings in which few women can participate). Local women’s knowledge has been consistently undervalued.
• Training for less formally-educated women and encouragement of flexible working hours in conditions in which local autonomy is ensured.
• Women’s projects: these may seem simple and have the ‘disadvantage’ of only being able to absorb small amounts of donor money, but have enormous political potential to promote peace and stability.

Source(s):
‘Gender Audit of reconstruction programmes in South Eastern Europe’ by Chris Corrin, Urgent Action Fund and The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, June 2000 Full document.

Funded by: Ford Foundation

id21 Research Highlight: 15 May 2001

Further Information:
Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children
122 E. 42nd Street
New York
NY 10168-1289
USA

Tel: +1 212 551 3000
Fax: +1 212 550 3180
Contact the contributor: C.Corrin@socsci.gla.ac.uk

Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, USA

Other related links:
Refer to the UN Interim Administration in Kosovo

See the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe

'The main focus of UNHCR work on women’s needs has been the US-funded Kosovo Women’s Initiative'

Urgent Action Fund promotes the human rights of women through the Balkan Gender Initiative

CrisisWeb focuses manily on the prevention of conflict in the Balkans

The IRC helps people fleeing racial, religious and ethnic persecution

UNIFEM looks at Differences Women Make in Peace Negotiations