At the Women’s Centre in Shkodër, five women reflect on their personal experiences comparing them with Albania’s culture and rule of law. Gender equality outside and inside marriage, motherhood, work, politics, inheritance: the changes taking place in Albania do not yet correspond to accomplished acquisitions by civil society.
Testimony realised for the Mediterranean Women’s Archive project with the contribution of Mediterranean Women’s Fund – Fonds pour le femmes en Méditerranée.
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ANA: «Personally, I have been raised knowing I had to clean the house, respect the elders, not talk to men except your husband. This led me to be, let’s say, a woman raised with a patriarchal mentality. Then, after I came to the women’s Center, naturally I started to think, maybe what my mom had told me wasn’t true, wasn’t fair, at least. So, little by little, I started working with myself and to think differently. I mean, I am Ana, I’m not someone who needs to please my husband, or his or my relatives, that is, I do what I think is right. And this came gradually, until now I think, not just me, but most of us and other women, we can decide for ourselves. Instead, for the new generation even if they say, even if they show that they have rights, they go out whenever they want, even with friends and all, I don’t think it’s not so»
DENADA: «Differently from you, okay, I grew up with…let’s say… with my mother’s upbringing who said I had to do, not everything, but… there are jobs that I have to do because I will be a wife, or the person in charge of the house chores. Anyway, my family was more open, I didn’t have to, let’s say, change much with my family. But I knew it wasn’t like that for other women. I came to the women’s Centre knowing that maybe I could give a small contribution to change other women’s lives, and also my own life because I knew a reality, but I did not know the realities of other women, their realities or freedom of other women I had never met before. Yes, it is true that in the last 21 years many things have changed and I would say that they have changed not only because of the will of the State, improving laws; civil society has been more present, women have sought their rights more. »
KUJTIME: «Albania is more open right now, because we’ve all seen the world, we have… we are connected…»
DENADA: «…we have seen more. Even if the law has changed or the implementation of the law has improved, I’m sure there’s still a lot to do because outside, but also closer to us there are so many women who are victims of violence and that are still…»
ANA: «… They need help.»
DENADA: «Yes, and they grow up with that mindset. Maybe, not only far away, because the farther we go from Shkodër and even in rural areas, this mentality is more present, but also here in front, closer to us, the mentality is present… especially in very vulnerable families.»
ROZETA: «I wanted to intervene, because my case is a little different. I was born and raised in another… I can I say, in a completely different reality, because I got married in 1996 coming from a different reality but when I got married, I didn’t really understand. I was over the moon. It was my life’s dream; it was the love of my life. He was a classmate of mine in college, that I saw every day. However, when I got married, at the beginning I did not understand much about the situation where I lived because I didn’t even know the mentality and reality of the city of Shkodër. I have mentioned it with you several times, as I like this internal reflection of mine. Telling my story, it can be understood a little, as since you’ve always lived here you can’t understand it, as everything seems normal to you. However, for me, it was not normal this role of the family, the role of in-laws, the fact that I had to ask permission, that I had to ask if they were okay with me going to see my parents, or hanging out with my friends, even the fact of not working. For me it was totally life-changing when I got married here. Work saved me a lot. I always said, even when it happened to me, when I spoke on other occasions, that I felt split in two, a half that had to play the role of the daughter-in-law, the wife’s role for my husband. Poor thing, he was – as they say – between two fires because he didn’t understand. He knew me very well because we had been together for almost ten years, between engagement and falling in love, however, it was a long time. But at the same time, he couldn’t get into his family’s mindset, that even he didn’t know so deeply, because he always had the love of his parents. This created a lot of tension during our marriage. Unspoken tensions, but they could be felt. “You are different, we had imagined another wife for our son, not the model we’ve been looking for. ” And this in my opinion is the difference in our mentality, but this is life: I don’t know why I’m here, why I married him, I still don’t know how to give an answer, I don’t know the reason, yet. Then, after 12 years of living together, I had the opportunity, I made a decision that could no longer be continued. Thinking back now, 12 years were too much. And from there, in my opinion, my life began with my family. with the children who had already grown up, one twelve and the other five years old. After I Ieft this family, made of good people after all with me, but there were dynamics that didn’t suit me.»
DENADA: «How was your mother? You were a free woman, was she free in front of your father? Did she decide without asking, did she go out without asking? Or did she raise you that way but she wasn’t so free herself?»
ROZETA: «After I grew up, whatever happened to me I would immediately go to them and say: “How come you raised me unlike these people who put up all these barriers about your job, moving forward, growing up? I’m very curious, for this reason I have done many schools, trainings; even when my first child was four, I went to do my Master in Turin. Imagine I left a small child. If I think about it today, I would I say it was crazy, but at the time I was very curious, I wanted to know. My parents never understood what these types of families were like because we are… I’m not saying we’re different, but they didn’t understand this situation, this strength that they had inside, because even when my brother got married, he was the only male, he had to stay with them, he stayed only three and a half years, I think, and they agreed to let him go, they bought his house and all. It’s not that they accepted it with much pleasure, but there were no conflicts, they were very peaceful. My mom was a very good, quiet woman, was very close to us. My dad was always outside, a little stronger. And my mom was at home, she raised us children, for several years, for ten to fifteen years she has not worked because we were four children, she had so much to do. Then, she started working. Let’s say that she… I think you were a bit of a strong figure, it’s not that it prevented us… We are three sisters, we have been raised, we have studied, there was no need to say “don’t go here and there”… That’s why I couldn’t understand. For us, it was very important to learn, getting to know do different things: in addition to learning languages, playing sports… because maybe even during the regime, the organization of children was a little more… there were more activities. Yeah, maybe that was it, too. We didn’t even have time to think about it too much. Maybe it wasn’t them, it was the system. Then, there were many libraries, books, I don’t know, many activities. Even on Sunday, free from activities, we had to go to the cornfields, we had to clean the building, I don’t know. It was a very different system.»
ANA: «Girls, it’s okay to go out and decide, let’s say a minimum. I don’t know about you, but my first child, I got pregnant, they got me pregnant, after four years of marriage, we were eighteen…»
DENADA: «Did you wait four years?»
ANA: «Sorry, four months, not years. I mean, I didn’t know anything about motherhood, about anything. Then, the second child, I asked to have it, because I wanted to finish this job, this obligation. Then, the third one, let’s say half and half. We both decided.»
KUJTIME: «Why did you only want two children?»
ANA: «It was the perfect number, in theory. But the first time I thought about this… as until then I didn’t even think about it, it was normal for your husband to get you pregnant. It was his thing, even though all the work was done by me, carrying the baby, give birth, life, take care of everything… The first time I thought about it was in 2018. I was working with an Italian NGO, as a representative of the Women’s Center, and there was a girl who one day said: I decided not to have children. We looked at each other and said: “Good Lord, she’s crazy.” And I asked her, “What do you mean? This decision must not exist.” And she said to me, “No, I decided this way because I want to live my life.” – Without other commitments. – Yes. Then, if I have a child, I would live for him, I would no longer live for myself”. Naturally, I said this thing should not exist, I said my opinions, but many times since 2018, especially when my children have problems that cause me stress, I think about this girl. Maybe he was right.»
ANNA: «As soon as I turned fourteen, I went with the nuns to volunteer in the villages around Shkodër. My parents were strong, especially my mom who always fought for me. It was the relatives who said to her: “Giuseppina, be careful with your daughter because she is young, why you send her with the Italians, you don’t know them, she will become a nun, be careful!” And my mom, who was strong, said: “Rest assured, I am not worried, I know how I raised my daughter. She can move on.” And she always told us: “Live your own life, for yourselves. You don’t have to live for others, for the mentality… Because around here, that was the common mentality, even though I grew up in the city, people always tease you, talk behind your back, but I’ve always been as strong as my mom. For me, every woman who becomes a mother has a gift, the gift of becoming a mom. It’s true that it’s a choice, but it’s also a gift, because there are also women who for one reason or another do not have children; others choose not to become mothers…. But it’s still nice.»
DENADA: «You think women are free to choose if they want to be mothers, especially those who have a husband, who are married, are they completely free to decide if they want to be mothers here in Albania?»
ANA: «But even she who says it was so good, it is beautiful, we’ve all been through it, how come you didn’t have two, three, four kids?»
ANNA: «That’s a good question. My husband has always worked out of town for more than fourteen years. He used to leave home on Monday and returned on Friday night. So, I raised the kids on my own. I used to work too. I left my daughter after three months and went to work. The girl grew up with her grandparents and I didn’t think it was fair to have other children that were raised by grandparents.»
DENADA: «I’m a lawyer, I meet a lot of different women, I understand very well how women are not free to make their choices. They’re not free to decide if they want to get married, if they want to have children or how many children to have. I can’t say that all women are not free, however, most are frustrated by the family’s opinion: having a husband, then, when they get married to have kids, because if you don’t have children, you fear that your husband will get divorced. I see it with women we meet in our work. In fact, I think selective abortion is also very present.»
ANA: «Yes, we have many cases of women doing ultrasound and after they saw it was a daughter, she would get an abortion because they already had three daughters. There is a case of ours, which Kujtime also knows, a case of the neighborhood where we worked: she had three daughters and her husband had said “No, you can’t have them anymore”, but she got pregnant again with the idea of having a boy. So, she had three abortions, for the last one they did the ultrasound and they told her she was a daughter, but when she had the abortion, it came out that it was a boy, and the husband made a scene towards the doctors. You are from the city, all four of you. I come from rural areas. Even if you know women, there is a different between knowing and being from there. I think that in rural areas, no woman, or at the most five women, can talk about making that decision. That is, you have children when your husband wants to have them, or when “an accident” happens, as they call it. There’s a saying I’ve always hated but for me it shows very well the mentality in the rural areas. “For the woman in your bed and the tobacco on the table you don’t need to ask permission”. What does it mean? If she’s in bed with you, you can make love, you can make kids, you can do whatever you want.»
TESTIMONY: «The issue of women’s reproductive rights cannot be unrelated to other issues. For example, Anna talked about women from rural areas the mountains, let’s say peripheral areas: they do not have the same access to resources. Just think about this traditional law of inheritance where it’s only the males who inherit. Women don’t inherit in many situations. So, how is that possible? We cannot untie a concept of freedom from traditional laws which in fact deny in substance the possibility of women’s freedom, as they don’t have access to resources, they also do not also access to work autonomy and therefore indeed their autonomy or in any case their own life is tied to choosing a husband and having children. So, stay within that logic there. I think about this… You have many elements to bring up and I would love if you could say something on this.»
DENADA: «You have to be aware of your rights and that your body belongs to you, your decisions belong to you. Many women are not responsible for this, because all the information about rights was missing. But it’s true that this right is not only linked with awareness, but it is also linked to other services because we know that in rural areas almost everything is missing: lack of transportation, lack of social services, health services are lacking. Women are not only unaware of rights, but they don’t even have access to these services, because having access, means that you can talk to a doctor about your health, you can argue with other women about what you think and how you make decisions, to be economically forced to take such decisions that have to do with yourself, because you don’t agree with what others are imposing on you.»
ANA: «In 2005, my husband went to make the request for the legalization of the house. After many years without getting an answer, I go to ask the Office and say: “I want some information about this request of house legalizations”. – He says, “who are you?” – I say, “I’m Ana Mila, but the request was made by my husband, Luigi Mila.” And he says, “no, you can’t have this information.” “Why?” “Because he requested it.” I felt like screaming! Even if the laws allow you to be part of this inheritance, if you did it after the wedding, the institution are missing…or rather… there’s this male dominated mindset, you cannot say to his wife “I’m not giving you information because he requested it”. We lack awareness, not only around women or people receiving services, but also by those who provide them. There’s a macho mentality everywhere.»
ROZETA: «It is said that in our culture the husband gives you work. Many women, many girls who don’t get married, consider themselves losers, anyway as people not liked by any man. They are good and all, they got to this decision. Even today a girl or a woman i judged who at a certain age does not find a husband. She may have lovers, but if she’s not married, is considered a loser by her family, by society, everywhere, as if something is missing. Even the other week, I was on an initiative and I saw five guys talking about a thirty-year-old girl who was their colleague, an engineer herself. They said, “she’s not good anymore, she is not good enough for us to have a relationship with, because she turned thirty”. Imagine a girl in her thirties who is an engineer, who has everything, she is independent, and the male world considers her one who is no longer interesting. Imagine what levels we are at; we are just meat to please men.»
DENADA: «Husbands’ property, but also of the family of origin, this is very present not only in rural areas. It is slightly changing here in urban areas, where also women can take their parents’ inheritance, but even here it is very present, let’s say, not so much the lack of information, but the unwillingness to share the property between sons and daughters.»
ANA: «In practice, it can never happen for a daughter to inherit her parents’ property.»
ROZETA: «My brother was my whole life, he’s twelve years older than me, he raised me, he was my best friend, but on the question of inheritance, even he who lived abroad, who has made a career and works as a director in a thing… he worked and is very well off, he travels around the world, however, when it comes to sharing the inheritance with his sisters, I understood there how deep is this thing about daughters who once they got married they left, while he stayed, although he didn’t even live with my parents.»
DENADA: «If even we can’t find the courage to work with this daily and are present, and we know the laws and we know that this is our right, it’s not something we’re asking because we want it, but it is a right recognised by law; how can we think that rural women can ask for it?»
ANA: «Even though I know I have rights, I’ll never be able to go get part of my father’s house from my brother. »
DENADA: «If you had a daughter, what would you do?»
ANA: «I would do the same, they have brainwashed me so deeply, I don’t know…»
KUJTIME: «I think young people right now have changed a lot compared to us, to our mindset. They’re more independent.»
ROZETA: «They think more about themselves.»
ANNA: «… especially those who work. Instead, for those young people who do not work is a little harder, because the parents force them to stay with them. They tell them, “If you don’t work and stay with us, and you have no right to buy a house or raise your voice”. Those who do not work and are adults have no rights. I’m not talking about minors but for those who are over eighteen, the situation is a bit difficult. I would say that it also depends on the economic situation, it’s not just because of mentality or the law, but it is also related to the economy.»
ANA: «But that’s normal, if one is not able to go live alone and lives with me, obviously I am the one who makes the rules.»
ANNA: «Yes, but according to the common mentality that in the family the men must stay at home. “You are the male of the family and you have to be with us. Take your bride and come live with us”. For instance, I lived with my in-laws for six years. After six years, I saw that it was a bit difficult because my brother-in-law had also returned from Italy and it was a little hard to be all together.»
DENADA: «Many women are now holding various positions. If we go to Parliament, we have more women, if we go to the City Council, we have more women, also leaders in various institutions. I think that in these years we have more women, but to tell you the truth, the way I see it, this is not only for all the journey the women have made to get there. I see that the state has seen that achieving gender equality, this methodology of having more women in various Ministries and Institutions, as an easier step to achieve, to get higher points complying with the Law easing the entrance of Albania in the European Union. Even though, now we have a law ensuring female quotas in various positions, although we must consider that women are not quotas, I think this law is very important because if it weren’t for those quotas, women might not be in those positions. Although I think that, at various times, maybe they don’t represent us very well, they don’t do everything to improve women’s lives, they do not improve the laws so much; for us it is important that we now have more women and then we can also ask to have more women who have more voice on behalf of the other women. I don’t know how you feel these years.»
ANA: «I think, at least from the point… Because every thought for me starts from what the person lives, not from a general opinion. They made me drop out of high school in the second year, – my dad and my boyfriend.»
DENADA: «They did good, in fact.»
ANA: «… but my father brainwashed me so I did not understand it. I mean, what do you need it for? Then later on, after I raised my children and started working at the Women’s Center, I saw that even the cleaners had the high school diploma, and I didn’t have it, so I decided to sign up. I struggled because I had children, work, my husband who told me: what do you need it for? And more. And I finished college, too. I say this because women, even to finish school, they work much harder than a boy. Even just going, taking notes and all. Instead, when they take a stand, I’m very sorry, but most women change. I don’t know what happens, especially in political positions, because women then think like men.»
DENADA: «Politics changes them.»
ANA: «Yes, it’s something I don’t understand, I don’t accept, but I see that men, the decision makers, they choose the women who can go support their decisions. I’m afraid that happens too, because from there they choose the ones that can be manipulated.»
ROZETA: «That’s how I see it. However, women, especially in the political hierarchy, are all chosen by men and are chosen by these models that are good for them. However, it’s not their decision, even if they have made a journey they are always at the service of men. I’m talking about concrete cases, what I see. Because if a woman like us who has made her journey, will go up to a certain point but our models are not accepted by our society which is still a very strong patriarchal society. And I see that maybe these women, in my opinion, as Anna was saying, are very arrogant, they don’t do things for women, forgetting their inner life path. We had some cases here too, some executives who came from civil society. I too personally came from civil society. At the level of decision-making figures, when you go there and ask for something they just don’t consider you. However, they question you, even though they should be on women’s side and they supported women victims of violence. That was a big shock for me. There is still a stereotype of a female manager who doesn’t support other women. I don’t like that at all, it’s not good.»
DENADA: «But the challenges that career women have to face are quite tough, I think, and greater than those of men, because violence against women who are in various important positions is much more present against women.»
ANA: «Psychological violence?»
DENADA: «Psychological violence or online they write just about everything, they look for anything about your life just to discredit your figure, your presence. I think it’s not so easy to hold these positions and maybe this is the reason that in those places there are not the more capable women, but the fiercest ones…»
ROZETA: «Yes, there is no meritocracy, that’s the first thing. And then, if a woman had her own stories, they tease you, they don’t say she’s good but they say she’s had lovers. Instead, if a man in a managerial position had lovers, for example, in his personal story, this is still considered a value.»
DENADA: «But I think that in all these years things have changed. And things have changed for the better, although we may not agree very much with the women who represent us on the City Council or in Parliament, because as Anna also says, they change because politics changes them, not only women but also men, because the battle to be won is not easy. And I think that what’s important is that now at least we have more women and we can ask to have strong women who really represent us.»
ROZETA: «In my opinion, it’s not that politics changes them a lot, it is our background, our inner being that has yet to be shaped to find these figures who truly follow meritocracy and who consider their role and place, both about managerial positions and also in the City Council, taking responsibility for having to represent other women as well. This is still very superficial, in my opinion, it does not come as representing other, but they think of themselves. I see it that way. I’ve wanted so many times to be part of the decision, because I worked a lot in civil society, I liked it and many times I have had proposals to enter politics, at different stages of my life, in the City Council or even higher levels, as a member of parliament. I spent a lot of time thinking about that because I know that this is a very strong transformation because you have to follow the rules and you’re not free anymore and that made me withdraw. And I say there’s still a lot to do so women can represent us in these decisive bodies and be a role model and not just a babe, someone with little brain and instead do her job with great responsibility.»
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