Pristina, April 19, 2024 – Today, the first working meeting for the year 2024 of the Forum for Dialogue between the Ombudsperson’s Institution and Civil Society Organizations was held.

At the beginning of the meeting, as a sign of gratitude and commemoration for the life and work of Mr. Naim Osmani, the former executive director of the organization “Program for Civil Rights / Kosovo”, the active member of the Forum, who passed away last month, was remembered for his contribution to the advancement of the promotion and protection of human rights in our country. On this occasion, the Ombudsperson Naim Qelaj delivered a post-mortem acknowledgment to his family, as a sign of recognition for his contribution in the field of human rights.

The meeting continued wtih the presentation and evaluation of the activities carried out according to the work plan of the Forum was made, and the activities for the year 2024 were also coordinated.

The Ombudsperson also presented a summary of recently published reports, which include safety and health at work, language used in public discourse, accessibility to public spaces and facilities for persons with disabilities, employment and the re-evaluation process in medical commissions, as well as the report on the quality of the translation of legal acts and their linguistic inconsistency.

He also spoke about the topics that are being handled by the institution, including the lack of drugs from the essential list, the challenges and concerns of victims of sexual violence in the process of recognizing and verifying the victim’s status, restitution of property nationalized and other.

The members of the Forum raised as a matter of great concern the recent cases of murdered women, highlighting the lack of reporting of cases of domestic violence and gender-based violence. Issues of sexual harassment in universities and schools, mental health and other topics related to non-majority communities were also discussed.