Call for participants: RAN in the Western Balkans - Study Visit on Women returning from Daʿesh Territory, Kosovo* 18-19 September 2023

18-19 September 2023, Pristina, Kosovo*

We are looking for participants that are interested to join the upcoming Study Visit on Women returning from Daʿesh Territory of the Radicalisation Awareness Network in the Western Balkans, which will take place on 18-19 September 2023 in Pristina (Kosovo*).

The main target audience of this regional workshop consists of on-the-ground P/CVE practitioners working with returning women in the Western Balkans, and those who have a specific focus on working with women and mothers in their work. This includes including CSOs, exit workers, youth and social workers.

Background and aim of the meeting 

Kosovo* has the highest amount of returnees – individuals returning from Daʿesh-controlled territory – relative to the number of inhabitants. As one of the first countries Kosovo* decided in 2019 to actively repatriate larger numbers of Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTFs) and their families, receiving them in a well-structured setting where a coordinated multi-agency approach was set up, assessing the risk and needs of the returnees.

In the last years RAN has extensively focused on the topic of (female) returnees and their families in the Western Balkans settings, starting in December 2019 with the RAN CoE study visit ‘Returned Women and Children – Studying an Ongoing Experience on the Ground’, and more recently with the December 2021 RAN in the WB webinar ‘Returning FTFs and their families’, the August 2022 ad hoc paper ‘Dealing with returned women in the Western Balkans: challenges and opportunities from a practitioner’s perspective’ and the October 2022 RAN in the WB small-scale meeting ‘Supporting families left behind’.

Several years have passed since this large-scale repatriation, which allows for a follow-up study visit, looking into the current situation in Kosovo*, specifically when it comes to dealing with returning women and children. Therefore, on 18-19 September RAN in the Western Balkans will organise a study visit to Pristina with 15 practitioners from the Western Balkans and EU. This study visit will pay special attention to the role motherhood can play in P/CVE and disengagement processes, and aims to answer the following questions:

• What is the current status of female returnees in Kosovo* and their children?
  • How many women are still incarcerated, how many have been released?
  • What has happened to their children?
• How are returning women and their children perceived in Kosovar society?
• How does the general position of women in society influence this perception?
• What is or can be the role of mothers in P/CVE?
• How can the returning women’s motherhood best be utilised as a protective factor in their disengagement and rehabilitation process?
• How to involve mothers of individuals who have returned from Daʿesh territory in their children’s disengagement process?

Practical information:

• If you are interested in attending this meeting, please fill out this form no later than 18 August.
• Interpretation into the Western Balkan languages will be available.
• The study visit will be a lunch-to-lunch meeting on 18-19 September. Participants will travel to Pristina on 18 September and travel back home on 19 September.
• Hotel, travel, lunch on both days and a networking dinner on day one of the meeting are covered by RAN.

This call is also available in: Albanian | Macedonian | Serbian

If you have any questions about the meeting, please contact RAN Staff members f [dot] cantersradaradvies [dot] nl (Fenna Canters) and w [dot] kleiradaradvies [dot] nl (Wim Klei).