Human Rights in Kosovo has been a controversial subject due to the country's history of ethnic tension and its struggle for independence.
All of these were orchestrated by the Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, the leader of Serbia and Montenegro (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), which controlled Kosovo as a province before the war.
[3] Before Milosevic's regime, Kosovo enjoyed an autonomous status that gave ethnic Albanians rights and this was guaranteed by the 1974 Yugoslav constitution.
Two years later, the Serbian authorities had forcibly displaced thousands of predominantly Muslim Kosovar Albanians, who constituted the majority of the province's population.
Due to the predominantly Muslim Albanians constituting the majority of the population of Kosovo, the international community claimed Milosevic's campaign was designed to depopulate the province.
For instance, as authorities were preparing to accommodate the arrival of incoming NATO troops, the diocesan reports to the Serbian Orthodox Church revealed harrowing retaliatory abuses were still being committed.
An account covering Pristina for instance, stated that “a wave of unprecedented violence, looting, murders, and abductions spread throughout the Province, especially in the cities, where the main victims were the remaining Serbs, Roma, Gorani, and Muslim Bosniacs.” Official data confirmed by both Serbian authorities and UNMIK cited that by January 1, 1998, there were 1,303 missing individuals, which include 944 Serbs, 210 Muslim Roma, and 149 ethnic Albanians.
[2] Observers, including UNMIK officials, maintained that this lack of explicit commitment to a multi-ethnic Kosovo sent the wrong signals to extremist who perpetrated violence.
An example is the Humanitarian Law Center HLC, which was founded by the Serbian sociologist and human rights advocate Nataša Kandić.
It is noted that while authorities have made significant strides in addressing human rights violations and abuses, punishment and enforcement of laws sometimes lacked consistency.