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For decades, women in the Western Balkans have been sidelined in formal peace negotiations. Yet, they foster peace in their communities, resolve disputes, and pave the way for reconciliation. Women leaders from Kosovo, Serbia, and the broader region demand equal representation in the peace process. Their message is clear: It''s time for women to take their rightful place at the table.
‘Wars break out. Peace is built slowly, often by women whose efforts are unnoticed. Let’s invite men to build peace with us,’ says Gordana Čomić, former Member of Parliament in Serbia.
Like many other women in the Western Balkans'' political and civil society space, she raises a concern: Women have long been excluded from formal peace negotiations between Kosovo and Serbia. With women absent from the negotiation tables, the "boys’ club" diplomacy has accomplished almost nothing and only led to rising tensions in the region.
In response, women leaders from the region have come together to engage in open dialogue to advance peace and reconciliation. The Regional Women''s Lobby in South East Europe (RWLSEE) and Cordaid organised these efforts with the support of the Rapid Response Window of the United Nations Women''s Peace Humanitarian Fund (WPHF).
As this project ends and its recommendations and best practices are shared, it is a moment to reflect on the two key events that brought women leaders together.
The first conference, Women Build Lasting Peace in the Western Balkans: Defrosting the Stalled Brussels Dialogue Between Kosovo and Serbia on Normalisation of Relations, focused on restarting official peacebuilding efforts with women''s active participation.
The second event, Women Shaping a Peaceful Future Through Promoting Interethnic Relations and Reconciliation in Kosovo and the Entire Post-Conflict Region of the Western Balkans, was held in Pristina, Kosovo, and focused on promoting interethnic relations and reconciliation.
These conferences provided platforms for women to share post-war experiences and address shared challenges. They facilitated a difficult but necessary dialogue: How can we move towards peace while acknowledging the painful past that remains vivid in the memory of many?
‘If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.’
Official, male-dominated meetings have failed to achieve any substantial progress. Politicians in the Balkans seem more focused on keeping the past alive, seeing agreement as a sign of weakness. Now, the region is stuck in a cycle of unresolved conflict and tension. This is very different from when Edita Tahiri, a chair of the RLWSEE, was leading the official peace negotiations.
From 2011 to 2017, she was Kosovo’s Chief Negotiator at the EU-facilitated Dialogue on normalising neighbourly relations between Kosovo and Serbia. During this time, she signed the first-ever agreement between Pristina and Belgrade after 20 years of peace talks.
Participants shared a common frustration: ‘She successfully brokered agreements by using her power to create solutions, not dominate others. Despite demonstrating the effectiveness of women peacebuilders, she remains the only female peace negotiator in the Balkans involved in international peace processes.’
The women agreed not to wait for an invitation but to take collective action to shape female politics. ‘If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair,’ echoed the famous words of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman to be elected to the United States Congress. ‘The UN Security Council Resolution 1325 was adopted almost a quarter of a century ago, but the level of women''s participation in mediation processes continues to be very low,’ says Edita. ‘Jointly, we need to change this reality.’
Women are already at the forefront of mediating conflicts in their communities, resolving day-to-day disputes and fostering peace at the grassroots level. This work is crucial, as it directly impacts people’s lives in Kosovo, Serbia, and the wider region.
However, women must also be recognised as legitimate powers in formal negotiations and granted the same respect and influence as their male counterparts. Women leaders argued for laws mandating 50% female representation quotas among peace delegations.
‘The barriers created by patriarchy in the Balkans make quotas necessary,’ agreed participants. ‘Men need to understand that nothing can be discussed anymore without women. Quotas for women in parliament do work – it’s time to demand that half of the official delegations be women.’ Fifty per cent is a natural proportion, after all.
Facilitating and supporting programmes like this is crucial because they allow women from different regions to come together, share experiences, and realise that they are not alone in male-dominated politics. Together, they are powerful agents of change capable of shaping a peaceful and equitable future for the Western Balkans.
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Pristina seems to have been a small village before the late 15th century. It is first recorded in 1342 as a village during the reign of Stefan Dušan, and about a century later in 1455 at the beginning of the Ottoman era it had a small population of 300 households. In the following century, Pristina became an important mining and trading center due to its strategic position near the rich mining town of Novo Brdo. The city was known for its trade fairs and items, such as goatskin and goat hair as well as gunpowder.[8]
Pristina is the capital and the economic, financial, political and trade center of Kosovo, due to its location in the center of the country. It is the seat of power of the Government of Kosovo, the residences for work of the President and Prime Minister of Kosovo, and the Parliament of Kosovo. Pristina is also the most important transportation junction of Kosovo for air, rail, and roads. Pristina International Airport is the largest airport of the country and among the largest in the region. A range of expressways and motorways, such as the R 6 and R 7, radiate out the city and connect it to Albania and North Macedonia. Pristina will host the 2030 Mediterranean Games.
The origin of the name of the city is unknown. Eric P. Hamp connected the word with an Indo-European derivative *pṛ-tu- (ford) + *stein (cognate to English stone) which in Proto-Albanian, spoken in the region before the reign of Roman Emperor Trajan (1st–2nd century CE) produced Pristina.[9] Thus the name in the pre-Slavic migrations era would mean in the local Albanian variety "ford-stone" (compare Stanford).[10]
The inhabitants of this city, which most of them are Albanians, call themselves Prishtinali in the local Gheg Albanian.[14]
The area of Pristina has been inhabited since the Neolithic era by Early European Farmers after 7,000 BCE in the Balkans: Starčevo followed by its successors Vinča, Baden and lastly Bubanj-Hum.[15] The earliest recognized references were discovered in Gračanica, Matiçan and Ulpiana.[8]
By the early Iron Age, the distinctly Dardanian local variant of the Illyrian Glasinac-Mati culture appears in Kosovo with a particular spread in hilltop settlements. In the area of Pristina, a hilltop settlement appears since the 8th century BCE at an elevation of 685 metres near the village Teneshdoll, around 16 kilometres north of the Pristina city center. Pottery finds suggests that the area may have been in use since the Bronze Age. The settlement seems to have maintained long-distance trade contacts as the finding of a skyphos vessel from Aegean Greece suggests.[16]
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