A 25-year-old pregnant woman was killed on August 24 in Malisheva. Her husband is suspected of having committed the crime.
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The case has brought renewed attention to the question of whether legal changes and measures adopted in recent years have brought greater safety for women in Kosovo.
Nearly four years earlier, another pregnant woman was killed in the courtyard of Kosovo’s University Clinical Center in Pristina. In that case too, suspicion fell on the victim’s husband.
The killing of a 35-year-old woman in November 2022 sparked protests and increased pressure on institutions, which were urged to change the way violence against women was prevented and addressed.
Afterward, legal changes were approved and shorter deadlines were introduced for investigating and adjudicating cases of domestic violence, while 600,000 euros were allocated to create an electronic system to monitor people against whom courts impose protective measures.
Nevertheless, the August 24 killing shows that the question of how much impact these measures have actually had on protecting women remains unresolved.
Data from the Kosovo Police, obtained by Radio Free Europe, show that 11 women have been killed over the past four years. Three of these cases have occurred so far this year.
In most cases, the suspects or perpetrators were the victims’ husbands, followed by their fathers and sons.
According to organizations that defend women’s rights, the challenge is no longer limited to the existence of laws. The problem also lies in their implementation: monitoring reported cases, compliance with protective orders, the speed of the institutional response, and the consequences when institutions fail.
Arrita Rezniqi of the Kosovo Law Institute (KLI) says that reported cases of domestic violence are not being monitored at the necessary level.
Luljeta Demolli, executive director of the Kosovar Center for Gender Studies, believes that the killings of women should be declared a national emergency.
Ongoing problems are also acknowledged in the latest assessment of the National Strategy for Protection from Domestic Violence and Violence against Women, which, alongside progress, identifies shortcomings in the functioning of the system.
The report published in 2026 mentions discrepancies in data between institutions, differences in access to services from one municipality to another, and the uneven implementation of measures by the justice system, social services, and the healthcare system.
The electronic system became operational after 20 months
One of the tools intended to increase women’s protection was electronic monitoring.
In April 2023, several months after the killing of the pregnant woman in the courtyard of the University Clinical Center of Kosovo, the Government of Kosovo allocated 600,000 euros for the “Electronic Monitoring System” project.
According to the official decision, the funds were to be used to finance the project during that year.
However, the system was not publicly presented until December 10, 2024, around 20 months after the money had been allocated.
During the presentation, Prime Minister Albin Kurti said that electronic tags would be placed on the hands or feet of people suspected or convicted of violence.
The project was also conceived as an instrument for protecting victims of domestic violence.
If the monitored person approached the victim in violation of the protective order, the system was supposed to alert the police at the local and central levels, allowing them to intervene.
Available data, however, point to limited use of this mechanism.
A document from the Ministry of Internal Affairs shows that by April 2025, courts had issued only eight decisions on electronic monitoring, which were being implemented by the Kosovo Police.
There is no data on how many of these decisions concerned domestic violence.
It is also unknown how many people are currently under electronic supervision.
In its response to Radio Free Europe, the Kosovo Police said it had been implementing electronic monitoring of protective orders since December 2024 and that the system was operating in all regional police directorates.
People whose movement is restricted by a court are equipped with electronic bracelets. According to the police, the system also includes GPS trackers, which are given to the parties involved in the proceedings.
The police said they had a sufficient number of bracelets and GPS trackers for real-time monitoring of cases.
However, it did not disclose how many people were being monitored or how many of the cases were related to domestic violence.
Rezniqi says that the lack of these statistics makes it difficult to assess whether the mechanism is achieving the purpose for which it was created.
According to her, merely putting an electronic device in place is not enough if an alarm is not followed by an immediate institutional response.
“The bracelet alone is not enough—in these cases, there must be an immediate police response in order to avert any risk to the victim,” Rezniqi told Radio Free Europe.
Deadlines were shortened, but implementation remains a problem
Electronic monitoring was not the only reform undertaken after the tragic cases.
In November 2023, Kosovo amended its Criminal Procedure Code, classifying cases of domestic violence and rape as matters that must be handled as a priority.
The amendments stipulated that investigations into these offenses must be completed within one year of their initiation. When a case is complex, the deadline may be extended by an additional six months.
For the first time, specific deadlines were also set for trials: 60 days when a case is heard by a single judge and 90 days when it is handled by a trial panel.
These periods are shorter than the previous general deadlines, with the aim of ensuring that cases of domestic violence do not remain in the justice system for a long time.
But Rezniqi believes that shortening deadlines alone does not address the heart of the problem.
She says that cases of domestic violence are generally handled within a relatively optimal period, while the main difficulty lies in identifying and managing risk, as well as implementing the mechanisms that institutions already have at their disposal.
Rezniqi stresses that accountability must also be examined in the way the justice system punishes the perpetrators of killings of women.
“We have seen cases in which the perpetrators of women’s killings were sentenced to life imprisonment at first instance. Some of these decisions were also upheld by higher courts, while in other cases the decisions were sent back for retrial or changed. Therefore, there must be consistency in the handling of these cases,” Rezniqi says.
Demolli points to another shortcoming: the state has no mechanism for analyzing every killing of a woman to determine whether the system failed and at which point that failure occurred.
She considers this analysis particularly important when the victim had previously reported violence or turned to institutions for protection.
“Most murdered women had previously sought help from institutions, so there must be accountability when a woman who sought protection ends up murdered. It must be determined where the system is failing: the police, the prosecution, the courts, healthcare, or other institutions,” Demolli says.
Killings of women worldwide
The latest joint report by UN Women and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says that around 50,000 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or family members during 2024.
On average, this translates into 137 women and girls being killed every day.
These cases accounted for around 60 percent of all intentional killings of women and girls during that year.
The report emphasizes that the phenomenon occurs in every region of the world, while warning that the actual figures may be higher because complete statistics are lacking in many countries.
Aggravated murder in Kosovo is punishable by at least ten years in prison or life imprisonment.
The suspect in the Malisheva killing is receiving hospital treatment for injuries that, according to reports, he is suspected of having inflicted on himself with a firearm.
The incident was criticized and condemned by representatives of civil society, current officials, and former state officials.
“Our society cannot be safe as long as women are not safe even in their own homes,” said, among others, Kosovo’s acting president, Albulena Haxhiu.
But the significance of this statement will also be judged by the actions taken after the public reactions have subsided.
