Who is Out to Get Whom? 

The Impact of Gendered Disinformation in Kosovo

In Kosovo, activists are raising the red flag on the rising impact of anti-gender movements  and their agendas targeting human rights. Anti-gender movements have had a significant impact on the sexual politics of the region in the last couple of years. Experiences of feminist and LGBTQI+ activists in combating this impact are serving both as a warning and baseline for Kosovar women.  

In favour of conceptualizing what the anti-gender movement is and what its motives are, Anne Oakley , British sociologist and feminist noted, that such movements consist of individuals and groups who oppose the feminist understanding of the term “gender” with the attempt to influence this notion. They strive to define gender solely in terms of the biological and/or “natural,” with the aim of supporting the patriarchal system as the only natural and logical order.  

Drawing from their experience, feminist activists in the region have distinguished between traditional conservative social movements that promote a negative outlook on feminism and LGBTIQ rights, and anti-gender movements, with the latter being specifically characterised as a movement beyond the national aspect, making way for transnational means of organising.  

Although there is currently no local research in Kosovo mapping out the ways anti-gender movements are shaped and manifested, local activists have noted that messages of such movements are consistently being reproduced through the spread of anti-gender narratives, misinformation, disinformation and propaganda on gender and sexuality. Generally, these narratives aim to manipulate perceptions of gender roles, minimise the impact of feminist activism, and curb the momentum and hinder progress on gender equality. 

In the public discourse, anti-gender narratives are disguised as protective measures in favour of traditional values and family structures, or as gendered disinformation which contributes to nationalist, populist, and often religiously influenced agendas. The victims of these narratives are primarily women, LGBTQI+ individuals, and children—both girls and boys— who pursue educational curricula characterised by often distorted gender norms and stereotypes. Through education and socialisation based on such norms, young boys are becoming part of the larger chain of incitement, producing hyper masculinity and gender-based violence. 

Gendered disinformation targeting sexual politics 

A draft Civil Code of Kosovo has had slow progress under different governments since 2014.  During that time, activists have continuously come together to request that same sex marriages are regulated within the code, in accordance with the rights guaranteed by Kosovo’s constitution.  

Parliamentarians failed to adopt the draft Civil Code in an assembly hearing in 2022. Although the government has consistently promised it will seek to ensure the support of members of the parliament for its approval, as of 2022, discussions related to the approval of the draft have been continuously postponed.  

This has not stop several deputies from using the draft Civil Code to spread disinformation. Article 1383, paragraph 2 of the latest public draft of the Civil Code available as of 2022, notes that civil unions of persons of the same sex are recognised, but that they will be regulated by another law. Marriage is defined precisely in Article 1283, Paragraph 1, as a union between two spouses of different sexes, husband and wife. Despite these definitions, MPs used article 1283 to promote homophobia and disinformation in relation to the what the draft Civil Code entails, by noting that the code recognises and regulates same sex marriages. Following the discussions on the draft Civil Code, MPs have publicly used derogatory terms to refer to LGBTQI+ persons, noting, among others, that they are sick, spread sickness and pose a threat to public health.  

During numerous public appearancess the head of the legislative committee for human rights and gender equality, Duda Balje, noted that same sex marriages go against “her” religious and cultural traditions, and that sexual orientation is decision-based.  

Many activists have joined forces to request Balje’s withdrawal from the position she holds, however, they have not been successful and Balje continues to spread hate-speech and disinformation on the matter. Civil society organisations have also filed a claim against Labinote Demaj Murtezi, one of the MPs who used derogatory language against the LGBTQ+ community. Although there has been an outcry and demands from civil society, there have been no official measures taken from corresponding institutions to condemn the language being used by MPs. That’s despite the impact these statements have had in the form of disinformation that has shaped distorted public perceptions in relation to fundamental human rights and freedoms, and in their reflection to an upcoming Civil Code.  

Gendered disinformation targeting women’s bodily autonomy 

Women’s bodies are the most common focus of attacks of anti-gender narratives, including disinformation and misinformation. Women’s bodies and reproductive rights were the theme of this year’s annual march of the 8th of March, organised by the feminist activists collective “Marshojmë s’festojmë”. Women and girls protested on the streets and rallied against statements of various parliamentary deputies who used the Draft Law on Reproductive Health and Medically Assisted Conception to spread misinformation and disinformation on the rights the law would allegedly grant.   

Such disinformation techniques, which stir up fear around women’s rights to single motherhood through In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), have been repeatedly used by various MPs, including Visar Korenica, Eman Rrahmani, and Labinotë Murtezi-Demi from Vetëvendosje (VV), Albena Reshitaj from the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK), and Duda Balje. These figures have emphasised and promoted sensationalist claims that reproductive rights granted by this law threaten traditional institutions of marriage and family, and may lead to an increase in single mothers and absent fathers. Deputies have depicted single women as emotionally unstable and have publicly suggested that IVF procedures through anonymous donors risk incest and undermine the Kosovar national identity. 

Appearances in the assembly and the media centred around the supposed harm the law would bring to Kosovar society, including delaying couples’ access to more affordable IVF procedures in public health institutions. Except for women’s rights organisations and feminist activists who encouraged the adoption of the law, the public debate generally focused on the enlisted disinformation and misinformation, instead of on the importance of health and reproductive rights that promote women’s bodily autonomy. 

On some occassions, the assembly of Kosovo has served as a performing stage for gendered disinformation. In the majority of cases, social media platforms are serving as key spaces for anti-gender narratives to spread. 

Recently, one of Prishtina’s primary schools was virtually targeted for requesting parents to register their children on behalf of two parents, namely, under the terms “Parent 1” and “Parent 2”. Despite the official school statement that this decision had come from a school working group and parents, as well as civil society organisations supporting it, the news was quickly spread online as a threat to traditional family values.  

Furthermore, when the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology recently published the Manual on Sexual Education and Reproductive Health for grades 1-5, deputies continued using social media to attack the contents of the manual. They extracted paragraphs of the text which were poorly adapted from English to Albanian, distorting the interpretation of such paragraphs and using them to spread disinformation. They said the textbook “encouraged pupils to touch one another sexually” as well as “teaches kids from grades 1-12 how to have sexual relationships”.   

Who is out to get whom? 

Women’s, LGBTQI+ and children’s rights are continuously being hindered and jeopardised  as the assembly, traditional and social media are transformed into arenas of anti-gender narratives, and political figures use their public accounts to spark hatred and violence.  

If we conduct a brief overview of what is being publicly considered as “a threat to society”, we may as well realise that the real threat to society relies on the distorted opposition to many legal initiatives which could serve as catalysts for improving human rights. 

Although codification of civil rights through the draft Civil Code remains pending, it could contribute significantly to equal property division among spouses, among many other issues, as it acknowledges women’s unpaid work as mutual household responsibility. The draft Law on Health and Reproductive Health could significantly lower the burden of women and couples who want to have children using FAM (fertility awareness methods) procedures, as they would be able to request such services publicly instead of heading to private hospitals, in which the expenses can be overwhelming. Furthermore, the law could play a remarkable role in promoting women’s bodily autonomy. However, the law continues to be oppossed by conservative MPs who are against women’s bodily autonomy.   

As per schools, using the Parent 1 and Parent 2 terminology would contribute to dismantling the patriarchal culture under which all school records of children are assigned under the name of the father. This way, schools could promote sharing of responsibilites in relation to what is currently an unequal childcare burden, where women in Kosovo are responsible for tending to children at home whereas fathers are the ones who show up as heads of households in official records. Lastly, Kosovo is one of the first countries in the Western Balkans trying to integrate sexual education in the school curriculum. However, campaigns have quickly multiplied across Kosovar municipalities and directorates of education, disseminating distorted or misleading information about existing sexuality education curricula. They have presented sexuality education as sexualising children at an early age. Disinformation of this sort about the actual contents of the curriculum is deliberately spread to scare parents and teachers, although research has shown that should children be more aware of their bodies, gender identities and sexualities, this could contribute to a decrease in gender-based violence, promotion of consentual and healthy relationships, as well as an overall social acceptance towards all the ways gender and sexuality are expressed.  

And if all of these important initiatives are consistently being opposed, all the while promoting “healthy” family values, in reality, who is out to get whom? And what sort of “values” are being promoted as societal and collective, and aren’t these values selective, based on the fact that they only contribute to the reproduction of patriarchal norms and stereotypes? 

As the impact of anti-gender narratives increases, including through the spread of gendered disinformation and misinformation, Kosovo risks retraditionalisation which is already being manifested in the form of hypermasculinity and gender-based violence. If political figures, MPs and the media continue reinforcing gender norms and stereotypes, anti-gender narratives may manage to mark significant regress in relation to fundamental rights and freedoms, as politics of nationalism and populism replace the discourse of human rights.

Author: Valmira Rashiti

Illustrator: Lana Nikolić