Marching forward for justice
Through photos: Kosovo’s ninth Pride Parade
On June 14, citizens marched unapologetically through the main squares of Prishtina, marking Kosovo’s ninth Pride Parade — the culmination of a week filled with activities centered on the demand for legal and social protection of LGBTQ+ rights in Kosovo.
Pride Week, held under the slogan “No Step Back,” opened on Monday, June 9, at the Kosovo Government building — despite the fact that, several months after the certification of the February 9 parliamentary elections, Kosovo still has only a caretaker government in place. After more than 30 extensions of the constitutive session of the Kosovo Assembly, the elected deputies have yet to take even the first step toward forming a new government: the election of the Kosovo Assembly presidency.
These repeated and fruitless meetings have created a vacuum, not only in terms of institutional functionality, but also in the absence of a clear authority to demand accountability.
For several months now, elected MPs have left citizens without any progress on the legislative agenda — and the longer the formation of the government is delayed, the longer the adoption of key legislation on LGBTQ+ rights is put on hold.
Thus, this stagnation is felt most acutely by those who have been historically oppressed and systematically excluded from political thought and action.
“For our state, we often do not exist. We exist only in unfinished strategies. In draft laws that remain in drawers. In speeches delivered one day a year — like today. But we are not numbers. We are not a political agenda. We are people,” said Blert Morina, activist and director of the Center for Equality and Liberty (CEL), a pioneering organization advocating for LGBTQ+ rights in Kosovo, at the opening event of Pride Week. Acting Prime Minister Albin Kurti also gave a speech at the event, but he did not attend the parade.
One of the draft laws that has been sitting on the shelves since 2022 is the Civil Code, a document that would open a legal pathway for same-sex couples to enter into civil unions. It was last put to a vote in March 2022 and, despite promises that it would be voted on again in 2024, it never reached the Kosovo Assembly.
Although the Civil Code draft was never passed, it revealed a lot. The debate around it, both inside and outside the Kosovo Assembly, exposed the homophobic positions of some Kosovo Assembly members. These views, often filled with misinformation and divisive rhetoric, extended beyond the parliamentary session and persisted in the years that followed. This rhetoric found a particularly receptive environment on social media, where users, aided or undisturbed by certain online media outlets, echoed the homophobic statements of the deputies.
The draft Civil Code also served as a path through which deputies, who initially opposed the law in the Kosovo Assembly, began to build an entire political articulation around opposition to LGBTQ+ rights.
A political coalition, Lista për Familjen, led by former Vetëvendosje member Eman Rrahmani, contested the elections with a program and rhetoric filled with homophobia, for which the party was condemned multiple times by the Electoral Complaints and Appeals Panel.
Ultimately, Lista për Familjen did not cross the electoral threshold, but it was seen as part of a broader global movement against efforts for gender and sexual justice. However, it was not alone. In addition to Lista për Familjen, other parties generally failed to include inclusive policies regarding LGBTQ+ rights — while some did not mention them at all in their political platforms, others built their platforms on exclusionary rhetoric.
Thus, “No Step Back,” both as a slogan and as a whole organization, responds to these organized movements against LGBTQ+ rights, emphasizing the insistence of activists to resist and affirm their presence in society, in laws, and everywhere else.
“‘No Step Back’ represents our commitment to stand strong against global movements that seek to undermine human rights, gender equality, and the fundamental dignity of all individuals, without distinction. In the face of growing hatred, discrimination, and attempts to erase our identities, we will not retreat. We will not remain silent. We will not hide,” this year’s statement reads.
This exclusion from policymaking, along with the sensational rejection of the draft Civil Code and the hate speech perpetuated and amplified by politicians, is reflected, among others, in weak legal protections, limited social services, and a lack of housing for LGBTQ+ people, who are victims of violence.
Amid all these social hardships and clear systemic obstacles, activists continue to move forward.
Photos: Ferdi Limani / K2.0
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- This story was originally written in Albanian.