Fighting for women’s property rights – Luljeta’s story, Kosovo

This video features Luljeta Aliu, founder of the NGO INJECT (Initiative for Justice and Equality), which supports efforts by marginalised women, young and elderly people, children and minorities in Kosovo  to achieve gender equality, realise human rights and social justice. 

Having experienced physical, psychological and economic violence from her former husband, she decided to report him to the police for domestic violence and filed for divorce. During court procedures, Aliu realised that the law regulating equal division of property was not practiced as it was supposed to and discriminated against women. 

Although women and men have equal rights to property under the Kosovo law, women only make up 15 per cent of property owners . 
Aliu spent six months studying the law and researching women’s property rights in divorce cases. She then wrote and submitted an amendment to the law, which aimed to clarify the joint property articles in Kosovo’s Family Law and ensure women’s equal rights to property in Kosovo. 

UN Women in Kosovo, jointly with the Security and Gender Group, supported Aliu’s initiative and lobbied with the members of parliament for the amendment of the law, which passed the first reading on 23 July 2018.