Abuse

So the other week my boss invited me to go to the field with her and two of my other co-workers during the day. Excited for some real experience, I gladly went. We went back to the area surrounding Ferizaj, which is where I previously went for the graduation ceremony. This time though we visited different women. My boss warned me that we were visiting women who were victims of domestic abuse, so I tried to prepare myself for what I would experience. I’m not sure really how you can prepare yourself for this situation, but I tried.

We drove around getting somewhat lost on our way to the first house. Remember that street signs are nearly non-existent, especially in small villages or in the outskirts of a city. We had to stop and ask at least four people where this street was, how to get there, and how far away it was. We came upon this rocky road and the car slowly made its way down it, though for a minute I was sure that a tire was going to pop and we would be stranded. We stopped at a school where a man told us to go a little further down the road. There were very small houses spread out along the countryside. The houses were all very small, one or two stories, and most were not painted but were simply brick, which seems to be the cheapest material here for building houses. We finally found the house. It had a pretty backyard with some natural flowers and a little stone path to the house. We got there and say miredita (good day), and I could tell that they are surprised that there is a foreigner there. I saw this man again who was at the school who directed us towards the house, and I looked at my boss, and she told me that he is the husband of the woman we are going to visit. Suddenly I was confused: how were we supposed to visit an abused woman and comfort her if her husband is sitting next to us?

It was a pretty awkward experience. Every time that the husband left the room, his mother attempted to tell my boss about his abuse. The wife did not seem to have the courage to speak up; she remained silent while the mother did all of the talking. Every time he reentered the room, the mother would stop talking and the conversation would take another direction. Of course this was in Albanian, and my boss only told me about the specifics later.
The house itself was spacey, but perhaps it only seemed so since it was practically empty aside from the couch we were sitting on. There was a mouse that kept peeking out from a hole in the wall. It kept trying to make its way across the room, and would run back into the hole… it really distracted me.

It was really heartbreaking to see the condition that this woman lived in. She was really poor, and her husband was not looking for work. Her marital duty was to stay at home, and he did not want her to find a job either, so she was destined for poverty. Societal standards also prohibited her from leaving her husband; my boss said that her parents did not want her to return home because it would be shameful. Our organization could not do that much to help her. Shelters exist, but there is a taboo about visiting them. It is hard for women to earn enough money to support themselves and their children. Furthermore, the government usually grants custody to fathers in cases of divorce, so even if she wanted to leave her husband, he would keep the children and keep abusing them as well. Thus, she seemed condemned to live in this situation.
The most we could do at this point was lend moral support. It sounds pretty flimsy, and I felt pretty helpless. However, this woman clearly felt happy that we were there and she was encouraged by our presence. I hope that someday this situation gets better for women and that more can be done to help women who are abused.

The second home we went to was in a somewhat nicer neighborhood, though the inside of the house was similarly empty. This time the husband was not there, and we found a woman sitting down with an older woman and two young girls nearby. The old woman was her mother-in-law, and I could immediately tell that she wielded some sort of control over her daughter-in-law. It was really sad to see a woman siding for physical abuse of a man’s wife, AND his daughters. This just goes to show how a patriarchal society can have such negative outcomes, especially if no one dares to stop the men. The women can’t leave because they need a man for income, and because of the social stigma against them. The worst part is the limited amount of things you can do to help. The most it seems you can do is offer them an alternative, a place where they can stay, and work, but you cannot force a woman who does not want to leave to leave, and you cannot easily change societal notions of a woman living alone. Well, I guess we can try.