Laws Changed, Women’s Safety Hasn’t: Kosovo’s Electronic Monitoring System Under Scrutiny After Pregnant Woman’s Killing

The killing of a 25-year-old pregnant woman on 24 August in Malishevë — for which her husband is the primary suspect — has once again brought public attention to the safety of women in Kosovo and the effectiveness of recent reforms intended to prevent gender-based killings. The case follows a pattern: nearly four years ago another pregnant woman was murdered in the grounds of the Qendra Klinike Universitare të Kosovës (QKUK) in Prishtinë, an event that triggered mass protests and pressure on authorities to change the country’s approach to domestic violence.

In the aftermath of the 2022 killing, Kosovo’s institutions introduced legal changes and allocated resources aimed at strengthening victim protection. The government earmarked €600,000 in April 2023 for a project called “Sistemi i monitorimit elektronik,” envisioned as a tool to monitor men subject to protection orders and to trigger police responses if offenders approach victims. The system, however, was not publicly launched until 10 December 2024 — roughly 20 months after the funds were set aside.

Authorities say the electronic monitoring mechanism is now operational. The Ministry of Internal Affairs’ documents and a response from Policia e Kosovës indicate the system has been in use since December 2024 in all regional police directorates. Police say persons restricted by court decisions receive electronic bracelets and GPS trackers, and that there are sufficient devices to monitor cases in real time. Yet the publicly available data on how widely the mechanism is being used remain sparse: by April 2025, courts had issued only eight rulings ordering electronic monitoring, and it is unclear how many of those rulings relate specifically to domestic violence. Police did not disclose how many people are currently being monitored.

The lack of transparent and comprehensive data complicates efforts to evaluate whether the electronic monitoring system is meeting its goals. Arrita Rezniqi of the Instituti i Kosovës për Drejtësi (IKD) told Radio Evropa e Lirë that institutional monitoring of reported domestic violence cases is insufficient. She also warned that a bracelet alone is not enough: “Nuk mjafton vetëm byzylyku - në këto raste është e nevojshme të ketë reagim të menjëhershëm të policisë, në mënyrë që të shmanget çdo lloj rreziku për viktimën” — swift police response after an alarm is essential to protect victims.

Legal reforms in November 2023 shortened investigative and trial deadlines for domestic violence and rape cases: investigations should generally be completed within a year, extendable by six months in complex cases; trials are to be heard within 60 days by a single judge or 90 days by a panel. The changes were meant to prevent cases from stagnating in the justice system, but rights advocates argue deadlines alone do not guarantee protective action. Rezniqi stressed that institutional reaction to risk and consistent handling of perpetrators remain central challenges. She noted that verdicts in femicide cases have been inconsistent: some first-instance life sentences were upheld, while others were remanded or altered on appeal.

Luljeta Demolli, executive director of the Qendra Kosovare për Studime Gjinore, urged a more forceful response, calling for femicides to be treated as a national emergency. She argued for a state mechanism to analyze every killing of a woman to establish where the system failed — police, prosecution, courts, health services or social care — especially when victims had previously sought protection.

Official assessments back up these concerns. The latest evaluation of the National Strategy for Protection from Domestic Violence and Violence Against Women highlights progress but also persistent problems: mismatched data between institutions, unequal access to services across municipalities and uneven implementation by justice, social and health services. Police statistics obtained by Radio Evropa e Lirë show that in the past four years 11 women have been murdered in Kosovo, three of them so far this year; in most cases the perpetrators were intimate partners, followed by fathers and sons.

The international context underscores the scale of the problem: a joint UN Women and UNODC report cited in the coverage notes that roughly 50,000 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or family members globally in 2024. For Kosovo, the challenge now is not only passing laws and buying technology, but ensuring transparent data, rapid institutional response to alarms, accountability when protection fails, and consistent prosecution of perpetrators — measures that rights groups say are essential to turn legal reforms into real safety for women.