Sexual Harassment in Kosovo

sexual harassment: leaning on another person’s body without his or her permission; looking or making
sexual gestures against a person’s will; sending letters or making phone calls without a person’s
permission; pressuring a person to go out (e.g., for coff ee, lunch, or dinner); asking questions or
making sexual jokes against a person’s will; and referring to persons with words like “honey,”
“sweetheart,” “love, or “baby”. Very few people consider posting pictures on the internet without a
person’s permission (15.6%) or favo uritism in exchange for sexual favours (16.8%) (e.g., receiving
better grades in education, a promotion at work, or a pay raise) forms of sexual harassment.
Other acts that individual survey respondents identify as forms of sexual harassment include:
“when someone makes you do something without your consent”, “a provocative act towards another
person,” and “disrespect of girls/women by
“Women don’t think it is sexual abuse
if it comes from their husband.”
- Representative, Mental Health Center
boys/men”. Others said that sexual harassment was
“immoral” or “something bad”. A few respondents
interpreted sexual harassment to mean “when my
husband wants sex, but I don’t” or “when a father
harasses his daughter.”
As Graph 1 suggests, a significant relationship seems to exist between gender and perceptions of
what constitutes sexual harassment. In general, a higher percentage of men than women, tend to
identify most forms of sexual harassment as such. 68 KWN found that respondents ages 56-64 are more
likely to consider the following acts as forms of sexual harassment: sending letters or making phone
calls without a person’s permission; making questions or sexual jokes against a person’s will; whistling
in the street; and posting pictures on the Internet without the person’s permission. 69 Persons over age
56 are more likely than other age groups to consider pressuring a person to go out (e.g. for coffee,
lunch or dinner) and referring to persons with words like honey, sweetheart, love, or baby as sexual
harassment. 70 Thus, in sum, older people tend to be more likely than younger people to identify
several forms of harassment as such.
Kosovars tend to agree that “a teacher requiring a student to come to their office at night, alone
to get their marks” is a form of sexual harassment (85.7%) , though a slightly higher percentage of
women (88.9%) consider this sexual harassment than men (82.5%) . As Graph 2 illustrates, slightly
more women (83%) than men (75.1%) consider making comments to a person on the street or
posting sexual photos of another person on the internet forms of sexual harassment (85.9% of women
compared to 79.8% of men).
68 KWN ran a Chi-square test, which at a 95% confidence level shows that men are more likely than women to consider the
following as sexual harassment: violent pressure for sexual favours; touching, pinching or punching; leaning on another
person’s body without his/her permission; looking or making sexual gestures against the person’s will; sending letters, making
phone calls without a person’s permission; pressuring a person to go out (e.g. for dinner, lunch, coffee, etc.); posting pictures
on the internet without the person’s permission. A Chi-square test at a 95% confidence level shows that of all forms of sexual
harassment, women are more likely than men to consider favouritism in exchange of sexual favours a form of sexual
harassment. No statistically significant difference exists between men and women in defining the following as forms of sexual
harassment: rape or attempted rape, questions or sexual jokes against a person’s will, referring to persons with words like
honey, sweetheart, love, baby, etc., and whistling in the street.
69 Chi-square test at 95% confidence level.
70 Chi-square test at 95% confidence level. No statistically significant difference exists across age categories for the other
forms of sexual harassment.
18