Albania Extends Gender-Based Violence Law to Workplaces, Politics and the Digital Sphere

Albania's previous domestic-violence framework focused mainly on violence within the family. Data-driven advocacy work by UN Women with Albanian institutions documented how women were also facing serious harm in workplaces, in politics and increasingly online — harm the existing law did not clearly name or address.
In January 2026, Albania's Parliament adopted a new Law on Prevention and Protection from Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence that expands the legal definition of gender-based violence to explicitly include public spaces, the workplace, political life and the digital sphere. The law defines threats, harassment, stalking and non-consensual sharing of intimate images as forms of violence, and it creates a mechanism for the rapid removal of abusive digital content. It also requires courts to automatically include children in protection orders when they have been exposed to violence, backed by a stronger child-focused risk-assessment process.
The reform was supported by the UN Joint Programme on Ending Violence Against Women in Albania (Phase II), funded through the UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund with UNDP and UN Women as lead implementing agencies. As with any law adopted in early 2026, there is not yet post-implementation evidence of enforcement or impact; the documented achievement so far is the legal expansion itself and the advocacy process that produced it.

Read the full analysis: https://rtsh.al/rti/en/albanian-parliament-approves-new-law-to-prevent-domestic-and-gender-based-violence-includes-digital-abuse/