Women in Albania: opportunities and obstacles
Diana Çiuli
Albania has not kindly knocked at Europe's doors; aware of having been part of it for more than two thousand years, it has flung them open traumatically, spectacularly, tragically. Stolen boats cross the Mediterranean, looking for the lost islands of dreams; like Ulysses, their ancient ancestor. This is the burning side of Albania. The other side, rocky, hard, with flowers grown on ashes, is still there, on the east shore of the Adriatic.
To be able to speak of the women of this country I have to give a brief description of the historical, social and political contest in which they have lived and still live.
Albania is situated in the Balkans, the land of the Illyrians and Albanians. Through here, through the famous Via Egnatia, passed the Roman armies and the crusades to go eastwards; through this land the northern peoples headed for the south countries. A geographically strategic knot, a melting pot of different cultures: Illyrian-Pelasgian, Greek and Roman, Byzantine and Oriental. This is the land where, more than in the other Balkan countries, different religion creeds have met; only here the free European women have been forced to cover their faces. The Albanians, after a desperate but glorious resistance of 25 years, after the Turkish-Islamic occupation, were left in an extremely different spiritual and ideological universe. In all legends, in mythology and in the Albanian popular poetry - extraordinary for its artistic expression - you experiment a strong fatality, the passing from the "normal" to the "a-normal", from life to death. For centuries the Albanian women have experienced the fateful destiny of being totally discriminated and, at the same time, worshipped in poems and splendid legends. As if men suffered this cruel law too, a law which forced them to oppress the beautiful creatures they loved.
Like all Mediterranean women, the Albanian women bore the burden of life. They worked the land, brought up their children, sustained traditions and culture, while the men were emigrating. They transmitted the life code totheir children. Because they are closer to life and death.
Though the Albanian women have never taken part in the social life, nevertheless they have always fought for the freedom of their country, the only liberating act they were allowed. During the Second World War, 6000 women, of a population of only one million people, joined the partisan army in the antifascist struggle. The communist Government soon gave women total equality with men - the right to vote, equal salaries, etc. But equality in not a mere legal act; it is accomplished only by means of a transformation of the economic, social, cultural and psychological dimensions. Under the communist Government this process went on towards a social progress, which nobody could possibly arrest. Women have gradually entered the economic life of the country and have become the main producing force, both in towns and in the rural areas. An eight-year education system was made compulsory. The level of education of women, who immediately used this opportunity, very soon reached high standards. These changes were the basis for the future struggles against a patriarcal mentality and a tradition of slavery. On the other side there were women who were the subjects of a double strain and double oppression: inside and outside the family. Inside, where they lived without even the strict essential things; outside - the lack of free expression and human rights. Their participation in the social life was at the same time a proof of their values as well as of the struggle to gain this position.
Like in all ex-socialist countries in the transition period, even in Albania there has been a considerable fall down of the representative women rates in the high government positions, at all levels. If we refer to the period before the 90s, women participation in the political life was very high: more than 30%. Since 1991, with the new elections, there are only 8 women out of 140 MPs, 5.7% of the total. There is one woman in the government, but no women as prefect or mayor. In the judicial system 21% are women, 28% in the university system (professors), 8% heads of ministerial departments, 35% in the welfare work, etc. Woman workers occupied 80% of the light industry and education system. Today, after the privatization and the shut down of factories, these women are unemployed. In the rural areas women now work the land, which has been distributed to small holders, without mechanization and have the whole household burden on them, the children, etc.
Two or three years ago there seemed to be no possible escape. Men began to go to other countries, to start commerce. Women were to remain at home. But the women's fighting spirit soon began to show the signs of the resistance to despair. The first indipendent women groups began to be formed (the Indipendent Albanian Women Forum is one of the biggest and most active in Albania), the first political women groups within the parties, the first efforts to gain control over the new laws, the first steps to carry out projects to enter the European cooperation, the first publications.
An unknown way, extremely different from that of the 50s. The legislation of the past was not at all bad, but it had been given as a present; women had not experimented the tradition of struggling for one's rights, for a law, for a discriminating article. The groups had to understand by themselves how to proceed: by identifying the most serious problems, organizing themselves, getting in contact with the world, working on the facts - carrying out projects, giving aids, looking for jobs for other women - but also, in the field of ideas, starting a new women struggle, different from that of the communist time, different from that of the western women. Through the contacts we have with the women from other countries, we understand that it is not only us who take experiences from the others, they take from us as well. The American and European femminism and the emancipation of eastern women, transition-women, are two kinds of experiences that are getting nearer with difficulty, not easily. Yet the exchange has already started. Two different worlds having the same goal: to be a woman, to be free.
