F.SH., a-25-year-old from Peja, tells what she has been through when she decided to get divorced from her husband.
“I was judged by the people around me when I decided to get a divorce. Everyone told me I should have stayed because of my daughter, who is now under her father’s custody because I don’t have enough income. I knew that divorce was the only solution for the situation we were in,” she says.
T.I., a 20-year-old from Ferizaj, shares a similar story.
“They told me that divorce is not a solution. They told me that I was the woman and I should listen to my husband. Thankfully I had no children, because the divorce came after only a few months of marriage. I had no choice because the control he had over me made me feel like a robot,” she said.
She had to find the strength to face the challenge and prejudice.
“I had the strength and persistence to keep on going. This is how I want to see every woman, standing up for herself,” she says.
Thirty-year-old T.A. from Peja says that he was supported by his family when he decided to get a divorce.
“My relatives told me that I was doing the right thing by getting a divorce. I wasn’t the one who started the divorce procedures, it was my wife. Marriage has its obligations and everyone who knew her told her that she should have sacrificed more to keep the family together since she was the mother of two children,” he adds.
Sibel Halimi, a sociologist, says that in developed countries, divorce comes as a result of emancipation. Women do not want to endure domestic violence or discrimination, and since they are economically independent, they are self aware and make the decision to end their marriage.
In the Kosovo context, according to Halimi, women in our society are victims of both marriages and divorces, because the majority are married against their will.
“If women had the right of inheritance, this stable foundation (marriage) would not be so stable. On the other hand, we stigmatize divorced women in different ways. We still regard divorced women in a different way from a woman who is getting married because the society moves at a slow pace towards accepting powerful women,” says Halimi.
According to Kosovo’s legal system, divorce is a constitutional right for everyone. Every individual has the right to end their marriage by filing a divorce in the competent court.
Lawyer SanijeMjekiqi explains that during the divorce procedure, the court considers both the spouse’s incomes to solve marriage issues and custody of the children.
“A special important issue in this context (if the couple has children) is that the court always decides alimony either for the children or for one of the spouses who doesn’t have an income,” says Mjekiqi.
According to the Kosovo Agency of Statistics, there were 1,268 couples that divorced in 2015.
From the divorced couples, women aged 25-29 years old dominate, with 292 divorces or 23%, and 25-29-year-old men with 277 divorces or 21.8%.
The majority of divorced couples (61.8%) don’t have children. Divorced couples with two children make up 14.2%, and lastly are couples with one child, who make up 11.7%.
Fjolla Hajrizaj
