Jeton’s three promises
The daily struggles of people with disabilities.
Below is a read-aloud version of the entire article.
Jeton Kelmendi is a 50-year-old man who lives with his wife and 9-year-old daughter in Vitomirica, a village roughly six kilometers from the city of Peja.
Though he studied law, he has never worked in his field. He has cerebral palsy, which affects movement and muscle coordination in his right hand and leg. Cerebral palsy is a neurological disorder typically caused by brain damage early in development. Like Kelmendi, about 20 million people worldwide live with cerebral palsy, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO also reports that people with disabilities make up about 10% of Kosovo’s population, with over 150,000 people with disabilities living in the country.
“I’m not asking for mercy. I just want the opportunity to show that I can also contribute to the community, especially for people with disabilities,” said Kelmendi. He explains that while he grew up with the condition, which has made working with his right hand difficult, it has never stopped him from pursuing his dreams.
“It’s challenging, but not impossible,” he said, clenching his left fist. “I learned to write and study with my left hand.” In 2020, Kelmendi completed his undergraduate studies in law at Haxhi Zeka University in Peja, where he is also enrolled in a master’s program. However, he has temporarily paused his studies due to pain in his legs but hopes to return as soon as possible. He spends most of his time watching basketball and other sports, a passion he’s had since working as a sports reporter in the early 2000s.
Kelmendi left his job in the media because the pay was too low. His wife, now unemployed, also worked in the same field. His wife and daughter are his biggest sources of support, motivating him to keep pursuing his dream of working again.
“When I see my daughter’s smile, I realize that all the efforts are worth it,” Kelmendi said. “I want her to grow up seeing a father who doesn’t give up.”
Three promises
Kelmendi made three promises to his daughter. “The first promise was that I would finish my studies. The second, which I made to her in 2012, was that we would have a house of our own. Many people helped me, and I’m grateful to them. The only promise I haven’t fulfilled yet is getting a job,” Kelmendi said.
He hopes to one day be employed by a public institution, for instance the Municipality of Peja, as he thinks it the best way to be close to his family and sees it as a more stable and safe workplace.
Job seekers in Kosovo generally prefer the public sector due to its more stable wages, dignified treatment of workers and respect for the law.
According to the Law on Vocational Ability, Rehabilitation and Employment of Persons with Disabilities, every employer in the public or private sector in Kosovo is required to hire one person with disabilities for every 50 workers.
In a report published at the end of 2023, the ombudsman highlighted the employment of persons with disabilities in central and local institutions in Kosovo. The Municipality of Peja met its quota by employing five individuals with disabilities out of a total of 249 employees. The ombudsman noted that employing one person with a disability for every 50 workers demonstrates compliance with the constitution and legal requirements. However, in a response to K2.0, the Municipality of Peja stated that currently only three people with disabilities are employed in the municipality.
Data from the Kosovo Agency of Statistics shows that around 85,000 citizens work in the public sector, while about 250,000 are employed in the private sector. To meet the legal requirements from the Law on Vocational Ability, Rehabilitation and Employment of Persons with Disabilities, at least 6,700 individuals with disabilities should be employed in Kosovo.
The Office of the Prime Minister of Kosovo told K2.0 that 180 people with disabilities are employed across all central public institutions. These institutions include the prime minister’s office, ministries and executive, independent and regulatory agencies.
Kelmendi and other individuals with disabilities in Kosovo not only struggle to find work and establish a stable income but also face challenges with the social assistance scheme. This scheme, which aims to help them, offers insufficient financial support and its access criteria are discriminatory.
‘We don’t get better’
Kelmendi and his family rely on just 200 euros a month — 100 euros from his disability pension and another 100 euros in social assistance for being a low-income family. However, to continue receiving the pension, Kelmendi must prove his disability every three years.
“Every three years, we go for a reassessment, and we are stressed about whether they will continue our 100-euro pension,” he said. For Kelmendi, this periodic assessment makes no sense in cases like his. “We don’t get better; we just get sicker,” he said. Kelmendi has received various evaluations for his permanent disability, a condition he has had since childhood.
For example, during the three years from 2018 to 2021, Kelmendi qualified as a beneficiary of the social scheme for paraplegic and quadriplegic individuals in Kosovo.
According to the Law on the Status and Rights of People with Paraplegia and Tetraplegia in Kosovo, individuals in this category are those who have difficulty moving their limbs. The law defines “paraplegics” as individuals who, due to illness or damage to the nervous system, have permanently lost the ability to move their lower extremities (limbs). In contrast, “tetraplegics” are individuals who have permanently lost the ability to move both their lower and upper limbs.
This law divides monetary compensation for these individuals into two groups, based on evaluations by a medical commission appointed by the Ministry of Finance, Labor and Transfers of Kosovo.
Those in the first group can receive up to 375 euros per month — 150 euros for themselves, 150 euros for a caregiver, and 75 euros for a sanitary package and additional equipment. In contrast, the second group receives 150 euros, as these individuals are considered as not needing caregivers or sanitary packages.
The government grants these pensions for three or five years, with rules requiring a reassessment of the pensioner’s health status after this period. While Kelemendi qualified in 2018, when he was re-evaluated in 2021, three years later, authorities determined that he no longer met the conditions. Since then, he has returned to only receiving 100 euros per month as a person with disabilities, the same amount he said he has been receiving since he was 8 years old.
The ombudsperson, in an Ex officio report published at the end of 2023, described the reassessment of paraplegic and tetraplegic individuals in the first group as a violation of rights, specifically a violation of human dignity.
The report emphasizes that the Law on the Status and Rights of People with Paraplegia and Tetraplegia in Kosovo addresses the “permanent” loss of mobility in the upper and/or lower extremities. “So, in both cases, it is a question of a permanent condition,” the report states. According to the report, the dignity of paraplegic and tetraplegic individuals is primarily violated by the practical difficulties faced in coming before the Evaluation Committee, particularly because the regulation does not expressly require the committee to visit these individuals in their residences.
Meanwhile, social assistance for unemployment has faced its own discriminatory challenges. According to the Law on the Social Assistance Scheme in Kosovo, only families without an employed member are eligible for social assistance. If one family member becomes employed, the assistance is automatically stopped, even if the salary is insufficient to lift the family out of a difficult economic situation.
If the employment is temporary, the family must then prove again that no member is employed, and the funds are retroactively returned to their account.
In recent years, after finishing his bachelor’s degree, Kelmendi has worked several short-term jobs. He said that these temporary jobs resulted in the suspension of both his social assistance and his disability pension. “When I worked briefly for a nongovernmental organization here in Peja, and they paid me the trust pension contributions, they stopped my pension,” Kelmendi said. “Last year, I did a six-month internship at Haxhi Zeka University, but I refused the payment because they would have stopped my disability pension.”
Kelmendi believes the government should categorize people with disabilities based on their ability to work, rather than assuming that all individuals with any limitation are unable to work.
“We are not categorized as persons with disabilities in terms of health. They need to know how capable we are of working — that I am capable of work. Instead, we’ve all been grouped into one category based on medical diagnoses,” said Kelmendi.
About the author:
Taulant Qenaj is a journalist. He studied Journalism and Mass Communication and has been working as a journalist in Kosovo since 2010. He was part of the national television channel KTV – Kohavision. Then, for five years, he worked as a social media producer and journalist at Radio Free Europe. More recently, he has worked at Gazeta Nacionale and Club FM.
