Street harassment is a sad reality for women across the world, but in Kosovo it can get particularly vulgar, and mostly goes unreported. But a forthcoming mobile app may help change that. Ec Shlirë, "Walk Freely" in Albanian, is inspired by Hollaback, which is an American movement to report street harassment.
The Kosovar app, which launches Thursday, will allow users to report instances of sexual harassment. The reports will be visualized on an interactive map and will be sent directly to the authorities. Users will also have an emergency button to directly call the police.
The forthcoming app Ec Shlire, or Walk Freely, will allow users to discreetly report instances of sexual harassment in Kosovo.
Nate Tabak
According to a new report published by the Kosovo Women’s Network, only 4.1 percent of Kosovars have reported sexual harassment or have heard of other people doing so. Those who do report harassment face vague laws and spotty enforcement by police and prosecutors.
“In Kosovo a lot of women who experience harassment don’t go report it directly to the police, because the police may not take one incident of harassment on the street so seriously,” says Albana Dulaj, a 22-year-old programmer. “If we have more reports, I believe they’ll take it more seriously.”
Dulaj is among 30 young women who have been building the app as part of a group called Girls Coding Kosova.
The coders have a personal stake in the development.
“[Harassment is] happening. It happens every day,” says Kaltrina Murseli, a 23-year-old programmer. “It’s happening to your sister, to your mother, to your daughter, to everybody.”
While individual perpetrators won’t be identified, the data gathered by the app will allow Kosovars to actually see the full extent of sexual harassment and will also put pressure on the authorities to respond.
Ultimately, programmer Vjosa Preniqi says that the app will make guys think twice before harassing anyone, "And also, women can learn from this. Because they should not support guys and say, 'Oh, harassment, it’s nothing, it’s a casual thing.'”
The development of Ec Shlirë also is helping address another problem in Kosovo: the lack of women in the tech industry. It’s a problem across the world, but in Kosovo it’s compounded by the absence of women in the workforce altogether. Only one in 10 women has a job and another one in 10 is looking for one, according a study by Democracy for Development.
Blerta Thaci, the programmer who leads Girls Coding Kosova, is trying to change this by giving young women more hands-on experience in coding.
"They thought that this is not something that they can do because it’s only for boys or something like that, but it’s the opposite,” Thaci says.
Another stance against street harassment in Kosovo was inspired by the viral video “10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman.”
Med student Rita Parashumti endures street harassment in Kosovar capital Pristina on a daily basis. When Kosovo organized a Take Back the Night campaign in 2014, Parashumti spent eight hours walking around Pristina, the capital, while being secretly filmed.
Men whistle and throw lewd comments at her. The worst part, she says, is when two young men follow her for eight minutes straight.
The video got a lot of attention, particularly on social media. People in Kosovo started talking about street harassment.
“It was the first time I was happy when someone said something [lewd to me],” Parashumti says. “I thought, wow. We got this filmed.”
Hana Marku contributed reporting.