NATO’s Intervention in Kosovo: An Intersectional Gender Analysis

In 1999, NATO began a widespread bombing campaign and peacebuilding mission in Kosovo to thwart Milosevic’s regime from spreading its violence across Eastern Europe. The intervention was justified after the fact to end the suffering of the tens of thousands of women subjected to sexual and gender-based violence, these women paradoxically faced stigma and marginalization for voicing their experience of the violence they endured. The aim of this project is two-fold. First, to determine whether NATO’s intervention in Kosovo considered the disproportionate impact of sexual and gender-based violence on women. Second, is to uncover if violence against women was at all considered by NATO leaders when intervening and subsequently rebuilding the country. United States-led international organizations such as NATO often escape criticism for their policy decisions. This is where the significance of the project lies: the lack of women-centered peacebuilding was a major oversight in the intervention of Kosovo and deserves to be examined by the academic community.