The lost potential of the ’90s

Mass dismissals caused them irreparable damage — now they are neglected as pensioners.

Artan Krasniqi

The lost potential of the ’90s

Mass dismissals caused them irreparable damage — now they are neglected as pensioners.

Artan Krasniqi

Human Rights 3 | '90s2020.12.10

“At that point, I told myself that I would do manual labor, and I would not submit to the Serbian regime or to migration."

Sabit Islami, engineer

“At one point, both of us were jobless. We had four children."

“It wasn’t easy at all to stay in Kosovo when most left."

Rilind Gërvalla

However, beyond the unpaid wages due to dismissal, the question is whether the loss of social potential can be quantified.

The expulsion has resulted in the loss of pension insurance contributions and other benefits, such as child allowances.

The state of Kosovo has rubbed salt into the wound of today's pensioners, the same ones whom the Serbian regime fired en masse in the past.

Currently in Kosovo there are 23 pension schemes regulated by eight different laws, which often contradict each other.

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Artan Krasniqi

Artan Krasniqi is a Ph.D. student at the sociology department of the faculty of philosophy at the University of Prishtina “Hasan Prishtina.” Since October 2014, he has been a teaching assistant at the same department. Between 2009 and 2019 he was part of the Koha media group, first as a journalist covering culture for the Koha Ditore newspaper, then as an editor at the Koha.net online outlet. He contributes to the “Monument” weekly section of the newspaper and has published six volumes of the series “Monument” with Botimet KOHA in English and Albanian. He has previously worked in public opinion polling organizations. Artan is a K2.0 Human Rights Journalism Fellowship program fellow (2020 cycle).

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