Three women failed to get selected for top public broadcaster jobs despite being rated best in recruitment processes – raising concerns about equal opportunities in the organisation.
When the Kosovo Assembly, dominated by the ruling Vetëvendosje party, elected the board of Radio Television of Kosovo, RTK, in July 2021, it promised that the public broadcaster would undergo profound reform, leading to its complete reorganization.
A BIRN investigation shows that this reorganization was accompanied by controversial appointment processes that prevented three women from getting the top management positions that they had been selected for.
Longtime RTK workers Ilire Zajmi, Flora Durmishi and Mihrije Bejiqi, two journalists and a lawyer, scored best in three different recruitment processes for leading positions – but the posts were instead taken by men who’d received lower scores in the evaluations of the recruiting commissions.
Men currently occupy the top positions in RTK, including board chairman, general director, director of television, director of radio and administrative director.
The broadcaster denies allegations of gender discrimination, stating that meritocracy prevails and that professional women are continuously supported.
RTK. Photo: BIRN
Job contest deemed ‘tainted’ after she came first
This was not the first time Ilire Zajmi encountered recruitment problems.
At the end of 2022, after 15 years running the Center for Professional Development at RTK, Zajmi applied for the position of Deputy General Director, the second most important position in the RTK management hierarchy.
She says she was excited by the news that she was rated the best candidate in the recruitment process.
“It was the first time I was applying for a top managerial position, and when I heard the results, I felt that, finally, someone was acknowledging my work,” Zajmi said.
“On December 20, one day after I was placed first in the job interview, Besnik Boletini [chairman of the RTK Board], invited me to a meeting and told me: ‘This job contest was tainted and there were rules violations,’” Zajmi explained.
Arta Avdiu, the chairperson of the panel, told BIRN that she had ranked Zajmi first on the list “based on her experience at RTK and taking into account her proficiency in foreign languages”. Zajmi speaks English, Italian, Turkish, French and Serbian in addition to Albanian.
Zajmi said she insisted on knowing what these so-called violations were, but Boletini did not provide any details.
The meeting took place in the most prominent building in Prishtina, the Radio Kosovo triangle block, whose tall antenna overlooks the capital.
Following that meeting, the interview results were annulled and the process was rerun. Interviews were organised for the second time, by the same commission, because the candidate who came third, Rilind Gërvalla, had filed a complaint.
Boletini, who told BIRN that he does not interfere in RTK competitions and recruitment, does not deny meeting Zajmi, but claims it was a chance meeting.
On the other hand, Zajmi provided BIRN with correspondence showing Boletini had asked for the meeting.
Boletini, however, said that “the recruitment process for these positions is not handled by us on the board”.
“The entire procedure is managed by the management, where selection committees are formed. What we are trying to create, and what I consider progress, is a meritocracy where the most meritorious are chosen,” Boletini added.
When it was made impossible for her to run for RTK’s Deputy General Director, Zajmi turned her attention to Head of Online Media, a position she held as acting director for more than a year.
When the recruitment panel opted for another woman, Zajmi took the case to Labour Inspectorate, which ruled in her favour and fined RTK 1,500 euros, citing several violations during the process.
Zajmi said she is convinced that “women at RTK are not encouraged to be promoted in their careers.
“The opposite happens. Women with professional backgrounds, dignity, work experience and ego are discriminated against and fought against,” Zajmi told BIRN on August 21.
Doarsa Kica Xhelili, LDK MP. Photo: BIRN
Sidelined by male journalist who used homophobic language
Flora Durmishi, who has worked as a radio journalist for more than four decades, says that she was also “stepped over” for the position of Director of Radio at RTK.
She said that right at the start of her application process she received a problematic message that she did not believe initially, but turned out to be accurate. She said that Shkumbin Ahmetxhekaj, the Director General of RTK, had told her: “Flora, the Board doesn’t want you.”
She nevertheless applied for the Director of Radio post that opened at the end of 2022.
Ahmetxhekaj confirmed that a conversation with Durmishi took place but says it was a friendly conversation, “referring to the fact that the board had rejected another of my colleagues whom I considered important for my team”.
Despite coming first in the recruitment process, five out of the 11 board members voted against her.
When the job contest for Director of Radio reopened a few months later, the board chose Arsim Halili, a journalist who had been reprimanded for using homophobic language in 2016 by the Kosovo Press Council, KPC, – comments for which he later apologized.
“After I came first in the contest, I was surprised and disappointed that not only the men [Boletini and Driton Hetemi] but also three women on the RTK Board [Arta Berisha, Deputy Chair of the RTK Board, Albulena Mehmeti, and Fatime Lumi] decided without any justification not to support me,” Durmishi said.
When Kurti’s Vetevendosje won a majority in parliament in February 2021, Doarsa Kica Xhelili, a former MP for the party, was appointed to the panel for selecting RTK board members.
She wanted to impose a 50/50 gender quota during the selection process. One year later, Kica Xhelili switched her political allegiance to the opposition Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK.
Speaking on the latest setbacks to women in RTK, Kica Xhelkili said: “It is unfortunate that RTK Board is not respecting the gender quota by which they were elected themselves.”
“We have not fought that battle for the Board to forget the basic principles on which they were elected, which were meritocracy, complete avoidance of political interference and gender equality,” she told BIRN.
The Pristina-based womens’ rights organization, Kosovo Womens Network, KWN, also criticized RTK.
“As the only public broadcaster, RTK has also an emancipating responsibility to be an example of the respect of law and promotion of gender equality in Kosovo society,” KWN said on September 1, the day BIRN Kosovo published its findings.
Disappointment came fast also for Mihrije Beiqi, a longtime RTK staffer who applied for the post of Head of Common Services, which oversees all administration and is the fourth most important position at RTK.
She was the most-voted candidate in the recruitment process. But when her name was sent to Board for the final vote, its members did not support her candidacy.
Following this rejection, Beiqi filed a complaint at the Pristina Basic Court and is now awaiting the court process.
“They [the Board] deliberately discriminated against me in favour of a man with lower managerial experience, but who came from the government to be employed in the media,” Beiqi said.
Beiqi was referring to Alban Fetahu, who was working in the Ministry of Finance and was later chosen to be head of administration in RTK.
BIRN filed a Freedom of Information request for Fetahu’s CV to confirm his managerial experience but neither RTK, nor Fetahu, responded by time of publication.
RTK General Director Skkumbin Ahmetxhekaj on August 21 denied allegations of gender discrimination during recruitment processes in RTK.
“This year, in five internal job contests for leadership positions, four of them were won by women, all of whom have been part of RTK: Heads of the Legal Office, Marketing, Online Media, and International Relations,” Ahmetxhekaj said.
Arta Avdiu, who was appointed as Acting Director of TV at RTK from September 2022 until March this year, before a man was selected for the position – Rilind Gërvalla – told BIRN that RTK does not encourage women to advance.
“At the last management meeting, around May, when I was present, I made a comment in front of everyone, saying that what we have is ‘macho management’.
“At the start of my tenure as director, General Director Ahmetxhekaj had declared that during his stewardship at the RTK, there would be more women in management. Unfortunately, that did not happen,” Avdiu said.