Third Session of the Forum on Minority Issues 14-15 December 2010 Aleksandra Dimitrijević Senior Lawyer/Investigator Ombudsperson Institution in Kosovo Madame Chairperson, distinguished delegations and participants, I would like to thank you for giving me this opportunity to share with the Forum my experience gained in the field of minority rights and protection of human rights as a whole, especially in the last six years spent working for the Ombudsperson Institution in Kosovo, in accordance with UN Security Coincil Resolution 1244. Protecting minority rights throughout history and even today is important, considering that there are a great number of countries and societies with mixed populations, having different ethnic, racial, religious or linguistic affiliations. Harmonious relations between minority groups themselves and between minority and majority communities, as well as respect for the identity of each group, present the picture of a wealthy multiethnic and multicultural global society. By acknowledging the aspirations of national, ethnic, religious and linguistic groups and ensuring the individual rights of the persons belonging to minorities, the dignity and equality of all individuals is reaffirmed. This then leads to participation in the development of the society and contributes to the relaxation of tensions among groups and individuals. In such societies, the protection of minority communities represents an important test for the development of democracy. Kosovo society, however, belongs to those societies which encounter major problems in the protection of minority rights; even though there are a great number of legal instruments aimed at minority protection, in reality the results are very low. Consequently, the obstacles encountered by minority communities in Kosovo are quite high. The armed conflict that occurred in Kosovo in 1999 has stigmatized minority culture, breached their rights and increased interethnic intolerance. Kosovo therefore belongs to those societies which still have to reconstruct the culture and respect of minority rights, interethnic tolerance, and multiculturalism in a modern European sense. In my presentation, I will try to give you the overall situation regarding minority communities and their prospects in economic life in Kosovo. When talking about the ethnic make-up, nowadays there live in Kosovo 88% Albanians, 7% Serbs and 5% other ethnic minorities (Bosniaks, Turks, Croats, Goranis and Roma, Ashkali, Egyptians (RAE)). Those figures date from 2005, and since the overall registration of Kosovo’s population will not be conducted before 2011, we cannot rely 100% on this figures. With regard to these figures, it should be emphasized that this data does not include refugees and IDPs. Next to common concerns for the return of refugees and of IDPs mostly from Serbia and Montenegro