The Ombudsperson Institution assumes ownership of the “Know Your Rights” platform from UNICEF Innovations Lab

Prishtina - On the 2nd of December 2015, the Ombudsperson Institution in Kosovo and UNICEF Kosovo Office/Innovations Lab Kosovo are organizing an event with key stakeholders at central and local level, youth, civil society, and media to hand over the “Know Your Rights” Platform to the Ombudsperson Institution.

The event will take place on the 2nd of December 2015, at Union Caffe, starting at 14:00. “Know Your Rights” is an online platform, developed by UNICEF Innovations Lab Kosovo in cooperation with the Ombudsperson Institution in Kosovo, that helps Kosovo’s young people discover and understand their rights and entitlements by providing easily-navigable, easily-understood youth-friendly descriptions of the rights of young people (aged 16-29) under applicable legislation. The platform’s Rights Guide covers key rights in areas prioritized by young people, including: education, health, minority communities, employment, family, the law, community engagement, social benefits and youth empowerment. Accompanying each right is a mapping of the institutions that are responsible to uphold the rights, as well as those to which young people can address complaints if the rights are violated, and an in-line glossary of youth-friendly definitions of important terms and concepts.

The platform contains a section detailing the process of how to address complaints to the Ombudsperson Institution in Kosovo (OIK) and provides a mechanism to file reports directly through the “Know Your Rights” platform.

Kosovo is the country with the youngest population in Europe. More than 70% of its people are under the age of 35 . In 2014, youth in Kosovo were almost twice as likely to be unemployed compared to adults. Among those aged 15-24 years and in the labour force, 61.0% were unemployed . Unemployment is higher among young women (71.7%) than young men (56.2%) . Another study shows that 33% of Kosovo Albanians report to having felt, at least occasionally, discrimination directed towards them, while the situation is much worse for Kosovo Serbs: a staggering 78% of them declare to have felt discriminated against.

Considering the above mentioned statistics, there is a critical need for Kosovo’s youth—and in particular, young people from marginalized and vulnerable groups—to have knowledge of their rights and entitlements as the first step to becoming their own best advocates, and have channels to seek redress.

To address these needs, UNICEF Innovations Lab worked with young people to design the platform to enable young people to explore their rights and connect with the Ombudsperson in the event of a violation.

Through a close partnership between UNICEF and OIK, the campaign launched a year ago through various events, such as workshops with students in schools throughout Kosovo, round tables on youth rights with youth and institutional partners, distribution of promotional materials to municipal youth centres etc. The platform already has more than 8 thousand users and has been visited more than 30 thousand times. The usage of the platform has been positive from the outset and it is expected that the usage will steadily increase following the handover of the platform, whereby OIK will continue the promotional campaign with high school students. As an institutional leader in the monitoring and protection of human rights and freedoms, as well as a great partner in the design and implementation of the “Know Your Rights” platform, OIK is set out to promote and apply the platform through the execution of their mission with respect to youth.