OSCE Mission in Kosovo

Activities

Human rights protection

Rina Toprlak (r), a deaf person employed by the OSCE Mission in Kosovo for three days, as part of an initiative to demonstrate the skills of people with disabilities to potential employers, discusses her tasks with Zana Preniqi, her interpreter, Prishtinë/Priština, 21 October 2011. (OSCE/Hasan Sopa)
Rina Toprlak (r), a deaf person employed by the OSCE Mission in Kosovo for three days, as part of an initiative to demonstrate the skills of people with disabilities to potential employers, discusses her tasks with Zana Preniqi, her interpreter, Prishtinë/Priština, 21 October 2011. (OSCE/Hasan Sopa)

One of the Mission’s core tasks in Kosovo is the protection and promotion of human rights. A large part of its work is to monitor the policies and activities of the Kosovo government and institutions, to review legislation and to help the institutions implement it.

The Mission monitors several clearly defined focus areas:

  • the rights of ethnic communities and marginalized groups;
  • rights to property and housing;
  • freedom of expression;
  • freedom of religion;
  • gender equality;
  • anti-trafficking and domestic violence prevention;
  • rights of persons with disabilities; and
  • cultural heritage protection.

It analyses the policies the Kosovo institutions develop on these issues, and monitors their activities – both on the central and the local level – for their compliance with international human rights standards and good governance principles.

The Mission reviews select pieces of legislation and gives recommendations to ministries and the Assembly of Kosovo on how to bring them into conformity with international standards. It also runs training seminars and coaching sessions to build up the capacities of the institutions’ staff and helps bring in external human rights expertise. The Mission supports the Ombudsperson Institution in Kosovo, which is mandated to deal with human rights protection and has a complaints mechanism that victims can call upon when they believe their rights have been violated.