It was 2008 when A.M. received her university acceptance letter, and decided to go out to celebrate with her friends at a bar in Pristina. The celebration turned into fear, and from that day on, she never goes out alone at night.
“In a bar in Prishtina, around 20:30 a person tried to forcefully get close to me. I didn’t accept and he got angry. I tried to call the police but with no success. Left with no other options, when he approached me again I hit him and after that action his friend came and slapped me,” A.M says.
The harassment continued after she got out of the bar, but luckily it ended because “I pretended I was calling the police and they got scared.”
Cases like this have drawn the attention of various organizations like Open Data Kosovo, Girls Code in Kosovo, and Kosovo Women’s Network. These organizations, together with 30 other women, have created an application to report sexual harassment called “EC SHLIRË” or “Walk Freely.”
Blerta Thaqi, project initiator, says that they organized nine workshops in total to create this application. For now, it can only be used in the android platform, but soon it will also be available for the IOS platform.
“Our main purpose is to raise awareness to fight this phenomenon, collecting data so then, in cooperation with the relevant institutions, we can take measures to put street lights in some neighborhoods or to add police patrols,” Thaqi says.
Kosovare Sahatqiu, one of the 30 young women who participated in creating and promoting the application, says that it appeared in the market on February 24th last year. It now has had around 1.000 downloads, and collected over 400 reports of various sexual harassment.
“The application is used by all genders, it is anonymous but the information is collected for demographic data. It is available in five languages and each user can see the types of harassment and in what places they happened most and in what circumstances,” Sahatqiu said.
Adelina Tërshani, who has been harassed in the street, says that this application has helpful functions.
“This application, that I have downloaded myself, is useful for the fact that it can measure the number of harassments in the places that they happen. In a way it is a step towards raising awareness against sexual harassment,” she says.
Girls Code in Kosovo, Open Data Kosovo and Kosovo Women’s Network don’t directly handle cases of sexual harassment. According to Kosovare Sahatqiu, they report the most dangerous cases to Kosovo Police.
According to a study by Kosovo Women’s Network published last year, 48.5% of citizens of Kosovo have experienced some form of sexual harassment.
Based on the same report, women experience sexual harassment more than men: 64.1% of women reported to have experienced sexual harassment, compared to 32.5% of men. Furthermore, individuals from 18-25 years old are more likely to report being harassed, while people ages forty-six and over are less likely to report the same thing.
Doruntina Stojkaj
