Aurora was nine years old when her grandfather began making sexual advances toward her. She endured verbal harassment, physical abuse —everything short of rape. Ten years passed and she hid behind her long brunette curls, afraid to speak out.
Until she realized what he did to her was wrong. Proper sexual education, she said, would have brought her to this realization long ago.
“When sex is not talked about, you can only become the victim,” said Aurora said, whose real name is being kept confidential for her protection. “Incest happened to me and I did not realize it then, because no one talks about sex here and there is no sex education.”
Now in her twenties, rocking dark red lipstick, a sassy smile, and hip skinny jeans, Aurora could not look farther from the victimized little girl she once was. As a university student, Aurora is no longer shying away from sex; in her classes she is learning extensively about human psychology, reproductive organs, and the hormones that dictate sexuality. This exposure, she said, is helping her to comprehend the abuse she suffered. While she may be well versed in such biological terms now, she said she wonders how different her life may be had she received adequate sexual education as a teenager.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), sex education in Kosovo has undergone several post-war transformations with the goal to advocate general healthy lifestyles. However, sex education remains a contentious aspect of the public school curriculum, its improvement and evolution hindered by cultural and religious conventions and general discomfort surrounding the topic. According to spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology Ilir Begolli, says that MEST is responsible for creating the sexual health curriculum. But he added that no one is ensuring that teachers comply. Sexual education is not required in high schools, so several NGOs provide classes outside school hours.
He explained that sexual education in elementary schools is designed to cover “prevention of sexual transmitted infections, unwanted pregnancy with a special emphasis in family planning and patriarchal society.”
Aurora, and several other young Kosovars, remember their sex education lessons much differently.
“In primary school, we had a course that talked about mainly social topics and there was a page in our textbook about health education, a.k.a sex education,” said 19-year-old Jeta Rexha. “But it was only a page and it was all in red, so it was highlighted, and everyone knew, everyone from my generation would go to that page, were like, ‘Oh my God, this is so interesting!’ So there was definitely curiosity there. But it was interesting how our teachers thought that we could be taught such an important topic in only one page.”
For Pristina University student Venera Çoçaj, 20, the discomfort and embarrassment that come with discussions about sex have persisted throughout her college classes. As a Croat, Cocaj said the lack of progress in terms of sex and education in Kosovo is striking. She said her home country is pushing forward with guidance from Western European influences and a communal desire for modernization and sexual acceptance, by recently legalizing same-sex partnerships and including adequate sex education within its school curriculum. She collegeaged Kosovars still laugh when the word sex is merely mentioned. This became evident when she attempted to present research on gay rights in Kosovo to a class of 200 university students.
“When I brought up penises and vaginas, everyone laughed,” Venera said, rolling her eyes.
“The professor looked at me like I was a perverted, vulgar girl talking about sexual things, even though I was talking so formal. It was like they had never heard people talking about penises, vaginas and sexual orientation.”
Nerxhivane Halili, a sixth-grade teacher at Hasan Pristina elementary school, said through a translated interview, that the overall awkwardness triggered by a sexual education lesson is a barrier teachers must break through. Young students may giggle at the mention of body parts, snigger at the idea of a menstrual cycle, shy away at openly discussing HIV and its modes of transmission, regardless of their beliefs or cultural origins.
“I have a very strong connection with my students and when I bring up sex and reproductive organs, I let them laugh, and I may also laugh with them, to make them feel more comfortable and so they feel as though they can open up to me,” she said, her crinkled
brown eyes warming as she spoke of her students. However, Halili said many teachers will omit the sexual education lesson altogether, because they are hesitant to tackle the embarrassment that may ensue.
Cultural and religious conventions can also keep teachers wary that teaching sex could glorify it, promote it, and increase the risk of negative ramifications, Halili said. “Conservative parents may believe spending more time on sexual education will encourage young people to become sexually active,” Halili explained.
Cultural traditions keep even the general mention of sex off the radar in Kosovo, according to Aurora. She said the absence of conversations prevented her from speaking out about her sexual abuse as a girl.
“People are sexually frustrated here,” she said with a sigh. “People do not have the chance to have sexual experiences because of the close-minded mentalities. People do not talk about sex. It is a taboo topic. Families don’t talk about it. Brothers and sisters don’t talk about it. It took me two years after my incident was over that I finally even talked about it.”
One of the first people Aurora approached with her story was her psychologist, who coaxed her to speak up and helped her to feel less alienated. Last summer, after her grandfather died, she was able to tell her story publicly. She said the experience gave her relief, confidence, and strength, and allowed her to become more independent. Proper sexual education, she added, also encourages a public, nonjudgmental discussion of sex. It helps to normalize sex by providing forums where sex can be examined openly and honestly so Kosovars can make better judgments when they explore their sexuality.
“Lack of knowledge equals lack of judgment,” Aurora said. “If you talk more about sex, then it is not going to be so interesting and exciting anymore. Teenagers are no longer going to say, ‘Oh wow this exciting thing I am going to explore it!’ We are humans, born to explore, and to discover new things. And when there is something that has never been talked about, we are going to want to investigate it. But we might make mistakes along the way.”
Recent statistics reflect inadequate sexual knowledge among Kosovar youth. A 2008 study conducted by the United Nations Kosovo Team (UNKT) in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) found knowledge about safe sex practices is severely lacking in teenagers, despite the mandate that high school students be taught about sexually transmitted diseases. The U.N. surveyed 1,300 Kosovars ages 15 to 24. About 18 percent knew how to properly prevent the AIDS virus and could identify how it is spread. About 30 percent were aware of the existence of other sexually transmitted infections, such as Hepatitis B and syphilis.
According to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), while the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases is relatively low in Kosovo, the rate of birth control use is significantly small among teenagers. A 2014 report published by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFP) found in a survey of 1,500 10th-grade students, 13.3 percent had engaged in sexual intercourse. Of that number, 26.5 percent had not used birth control. The preferred method of birth control was the condom, with one-third of the sexually active 10th graders reporting regular use. More than 1,500 students responded to the survey.
However, the 2008 UNKT study reported that only half of its respondents perceived AIDS to be significant health concern, and 22 percent considered themselves at moderate to high risk of contracting the disease.
“The main reason for this opinion is because they do not use a condom every time they have sexual intercourse or that they might get/have gotten infected when they receive a blood transfusion, or because of having had sexual intercourse with more than one partner,” the survey reported.
The lack of knowledge about HIV/AIDS and methods of prevention are the most concerning consequences of inadequate sexual education, Halili said. If she were to revise her school’s curriculum so that it aligns better with societal needs, she would increase instruction on disease prevention.
“I would like to see sexual education become its own required class that covers more information about AIDs and HIV, because those are very dangerous diseases that we do not focus enough on in schools,” she said.
Aurora said better sex education could also boost overall psychological health, because discussing sex in a positive, non-judgmental light allows humans to healthily explore and embrace their sexuality, whatever that may be.
She added that if her grandfather would have received the proper sexual education, fully comprehended the origins of his sexuality, and had the opportunity to healthily express it, he may not have abused her.
“I think my granddad had some mis-outs in his childhood,” she said quietly, her eyes reflecting sadness in the recollection. “I don’t blame him, because I study medicine and I know in psychology things happen in the human brain and everything that can go wrong is usually a medical or psychological issue. It is about hormones, it is about physical issues. It is about missing out understanding why things happen and realizing it is OK.”
Several non-governmental organizations are advocating safe-sex knowledge and general reproductive health practices throughout Kosovo. The Peer Education Network (PEN) has nearly 1,500 volunteers who are trained to promote sexual health to Kosovo youth mainly in rural areas. The organization hosts three-day workshops in high schools on topics such as pregnancy, birth control use, and STDs. Students are encouraged to share this information with their peers.
Most of PEN’s educators are teenagers who can better relate to the high school students. “We have noticed that most students during these workshops really have no idea what is going on and some leave when we start to discuss birth control and condoms. They haven’t heard of such things before,” said project PEN project manager Aulonë Kadriu, who emits a youthful and approachable air herself. “But we identify the most shy students and we talk in person with them to make them feel free and open and by the end of the class they are so full of knowledge and enthusiastic about everything they are learning.”
Kadriu said she has seen an increase in sexual awareness and health in rural villages since the project began a year ago. Foundation Together Kosovo is a non-profit agency that endorses psychosocial well being for youth and community in Kosovo. Representative Sihana Bejtullahu said the organization manages a webpage titled “You Are Not Alone,” where viewers can post questions regarding sex, society, and psychology, through an anonymous forum.
The website’s administrators then collect information from a database of doctors, psychologists, teachers, and advocates to answer the questions.
“The website gives people more incentive to write about problems they are having and to ask questions,” Bejtullahu said. “It gives them an opportunity to post comments, so teens are helping other teens, in a way.”
She added that questioners range from 12 to 30 years old, and the website receives about 120 sex-based queries a week. Most questions pertain to the constitution of virginity, and what it means to truly “lose” it, Bejtullahu said.
While NGOs are pushing for sexual education reform, tangible improvement within schools remains to be seen. Begolli said if he were to restructure sexual education in the public school curriculum, he would make a separate class that just focused on sex education.
Egzon Bunjaku, 25, an employee at Lokacioni web development center in Pristina, said online classes and forums like the one Foundation Kosovo Together manages, might provide a better venue for effective sexual education, for more religious students, who may feel uncomfortable discussing sex in classrooms.
“I would like to see sex education become more of a required course through online learning platforms,” Bunjaku said. “No matter what people believe as far as religion, they should have to learn about sex and how to protect themselves.”
Aurora said sex education should be introduced to students at a younger age — in fifth grade.
“At that age you have already been introduced to the basic stuff about the body, and you are beginning to experience sexual feelings,” she explained.
With one of the youngest populations in Europe, Kosovo is experiencing change and evolution at a rapid rate. Cocaj thinks it just a matter of time before sexual education catches up with societal development and demands.
“Kosovo likes to copy other European countries,” Cocaj said. “Just like in those countries, teenagers and young people are talking about sex more. We are having sex more. So I definitely think we will see more sex education in the future.”
Aurora said she thinks Kosovo and its sex education still have a long way to go. “I would say that the progress is poor. It sure is different than the previous years, but the change is only slightly progressing,” she added.
But just being able to speak out, “has made a difference,” she said with a hopeful smile.
(Victoria Slater is a reporting intern at KosovaLive this summer, in collaboration with Miami University in the United States.)
