Contribution of Albanian Parliamentary Ombudsman in the Regional Workshop:

 “The Situation of Women in the Region of Western Balkans”

Held by Artur LAZEBEU – Head of Cabinet 

in the Albanian Ombudsman Office

Belgrade, 14-15 May 2007

Dear colleagues,

In his novel, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, Oscar Wilde wrote: “I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, downwright cruelty, more than anything else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We have emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their masters, all the same. They love being dominated”.

Despite in which mouth Oscar Wilde put the aforementioned quote, against which we can react with dissagreement, these words sprang up my mind, when two months ago public opinion learned from media (Weekly MAPO, nr.28 by Alfred Peza) about circumstances that led an Albanian woman from a village of Tirana District, to murder her husband and at the same time father of her seven children, and then bury his body in the banks of the village creek. This act undoubtedly serves as the perfect mirror of our reality, be it partial, but the bitter reality of man-and- woman relationships within this peripheral part of our society, where bigotry is concealed not only behind the concrete walls of the village houses, but even behind “Armani” jeans and luxurious cars that glitter along our boulevards. Of course, this crime is to be punished according to the laws of the state. However, as cruel as this act is, we all understand that ultimately she could no longer endure being a slave “looking for her master” in that lost area of Albania capital. Still, and most importantly, she refused to be dominated by her medieval husband.

That “lady in black” is not the first, and certainly not the last one in Albania’s post-communist modern history, a time, where all of us seem to be in search of a new identity. There are currently 72 girls and women behind the bars, half of whom have murdered their violent husbands. Twenty others have resorted to the same extreme form of rebellion against other family members or kinship, without taking into account hundreds of women who have escaped their husbands’ slavery and systemic verbal, psychological and physical abuse, through the ultimate act of self-sacrifice. That’s why the crime described above, first of all is a serious blow to our social consciousness, it is our collective shame and the dark stain on the walls of life standards, left on the mercy of state standards, untill we truly be liberated from the demons of this remote and recent past, trying to deserve our seat in the European family, as a dignified member.

As it is said in the Human Development Report on Albania, the current status of women today is very complicated phenomenon, and trying to identify the problems, we may single out economic poverty and abandonment of schools. In general, Albanian society “has assigned” women more roles than men; they need fo fulfill the productive, reproductive, social and community roles. In the rural areas, these conditions and mentality complicate the situation even worse. Although laws may be among the best possible, imported from abroad in our way, the absence of implementing mechanisms makes them almost useless.There is also distinction among all economically active age groups and in all economy branches, with the slight difference in the education and public administration branches. Besides, girls and women also have to face age discrimination, which is notable in job announcements, with women of the reproductive age or above a given age, who may not be employed easily. Even in those cases when they are emloyed, we notice that women and girls are often employed in jobs of low hierarchical positions. This picture is not much different in the private sector, with women’s participation still being at low levels. Further more, the role of state and financial institucions does not create or support the proper conditions to favor women and girls’ starting of businesses.

A research on gender and education I reffer to (Presentation and quality of democracy in Albania, a gender perspective 2006), shows that in many countries, including Albania, education and its numerous aspects such as classroom interaction, programs, curricula frameworks, academic environment etc., play an important role in preserving or conveying gender inequalities.

Albanian legislation does not discriminate based on gender and the country’s laws are quite democratic, by completting legal framework regarding legal rights between the two sexes in the field of employment, education, decision making, against discrimination and sexual harassment, and provides for legal provisions when violations are found. Besides domestic laws, the Republic of Albania is signatory of different international conventions, among which those encouraging equal treatment between the two sexes, such as CEDAW, ratified by parliament since 1993. Fortunately, CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for Action have provided detailed instructions on general issues regarding women and girls’ rights and gender, thus serving as a guide for implementing the Millennium Goals. Remembering that gender equality is a phenomenon that cannot be achieved through the establishment of a law only, but rather comes as a result of efficient functioning of different strategies, which, integrated together, create a complete panorama in every aspect of society, including economic, political, or cultural ones, one of the fundamental issues to be clarified remains the still unresovled problem of the women being themselves stakeholders both in politics and decision making. All of us may accept the principle that “women emancipation level represents the natural level of general emancipation”. As a matter of fact, by October 2006, Albanian Ombudsman turned to the Albanian Parliamentary Commission of Electoral Reform, with the Recommendation, claiming for 30 per cent of the representation quotas be obligatory assigned to women in all levels of politics. Unfortunately, the ears of politics did not listen well “from that side of pillow”, and consequently our current Parliament of 140 seats, have no more than 10 ones occupied by women. What remains to be done by our office is to strengthen cooperation with Civil Society Institutions and with Media, and still to persist time after time, by sticking to the point.

Dear colleagues,

Some years ago, may be with some of you, I have been in Moldova in a similar seminar. While having a glass of good wine in the afterwards of that activity, the Moldovian Human Rights Defender repeated time after time in a musical way some verses like “Every day and every night, We protect human right; Every day and every night, I protect woman’s right”. As you see, he said that in singular, not in plural, surely for the sake of rhyme. But still, I agree with him. Let us, first of all better respect our wifes, our girls, our partners, sisters, mothers and every kind of being female, not only by singing to them, but by thinking deeper and better of them, not only by guitaar, but by better laws and more effective law enforcement mechanisms. I like Oscar Wilde, even though I don’t like the quote used by me on the outset of this speech .

Thank you for being attentive to me.