Posted on 06/23/2002 10:17:48 AM PDT by crazykatz
Domestic violence - one safe place?
Officer Jim Cooper has become a familiar face at the shelter. Although he comes by to check on all the women, he is particularly attentive to one: A 35-year-old Albanian woman, Luljeta. For Cooper, she has become something of a personal crusade.
Luljeta's husband started beating her early in their eight-year marriage. The cables he used left scars on her back. After the sixth year he also began bringing other women into their home.
Luljeta ran away twice, but each time her husband found her and brought her back. This time he has not been able to find her. She has been living in a safe house with her son and 11 other women and children whose lives are in danger from the men they once loved.
Cooper, a Florida cop with many years experience combating domestic violence, came to Kosovo six months ago to set up a Kosovo Police Service (KPS) domestic violence unit for the Pejë region. His team, now called the Special Victims Unit, has since been expanded to include sexual assault and child abuse, crimes that go hand in hand with domestic violence.
Cooper says the difference in Kosovo is in the culture, not the crime. "Domestic violence here is similar to that in the States, except that in America women know they don't have to tolerate it," says Cooper. "Women in Kosovo think they have no choice but to submit to their husbands' will. And the men who 'discipline' their wives say it is in their custom to do so - especially in the villages." "The biggest problem for women who want to escape an abusive relationship is the lack of independence and economic stability," says Ariana Qosaj, a lawyer working on domestic violence issues with the OSCE's Department of Human Rights and Rule of Law.
"The tradition is that property is in the husband's name and so the wife has no way to live apart from him," says Qosaj. Usually her own family won't take her back, and if they do, they often won't take the children because they are considered wards of her husband's family. So when a woman leaves an abusive husband, she eventually goes back and the violence starts all over again. It's a vicious circle."
In "No safe place - an assessment on violence against women in Kosovo", undertaken by UNIFEM and UK's Department for International Develop-ment, one in four women questioned say they have experienced physical violence by partners or family members.
These women say the patterns that eventually lead to physical violence begin when they are young girls in the home, in the form of restriction, discrimination, inequality and lack of access. These factors, also present in society at large, often increase for a woman after marriage. The study cites the Albanian extended family structure as increasing the likelihood of a woman being subjected to physical or emotional violence. "After the husband, we have found that the mother-in-law is the second most likely person to abuse the wife," says Cooper.
"Honour" and "shame" are often cited as the defining tenets of the Kosovo Albanian family value system. Devotion to these beliefs, however, is often to the detriment of the female family members. In the past year at least three young women, accused of tarnishing the family image, were killed by their own brothers.
Under applicable Yugoslav law, a witness is required in order to arrest a husband who has beaten his wife. "It is the nature of domestic violence that there is rarely ever a witness," says Cooper. Also under the law, rape within marriage is exempt from legal prosecution.
Qosaj is working on the final draft of the UNMIK Regulation on Protection Against Domestic Violence, which is to be promulgated in the coming months. The regulation, which has been in the works for two years, was drafted by a group of international and local women's NGOs, judges, prosecutors and gender affairs specialists.
"Basically what exists under the current law is that nothing exists," says Qosaj. "But to create an effective tool takes time and we need input from the major parties. This new regulation will address totally new areas such as marital rape and protection orders. We are also focusing on the procedural aspects to make sure the judges and prosecutors can implement the law."
The new regulation will also address the property issue by stating that even if a property belongs to the husband, if he is guilty of abusing his wife he will be forced to vacate the premises but must continue to pay the mortgage.
For Cooper, the new law can't go on the books fast enough. "I desperately need the tools to be able to do this job right," he says. He has confronted Luljeta's husband and is currently making a case against him with what he considers damning evidence. But because of the toothless current laws, Cooper says the most jail time he will face is perhaps 30 days.
The biggest difference he has made so far, estimates Cooper, is in educating the public - both men and women. "Women are starting to become aware of their rights," says Cooper. "And men must know that there are consequences to their actions."
Aside from the new law, a few other instruments are being put in place to help victims of domestic violence. Within the new Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare there will be a domestic violence policy co-ordinator to develop policies to respond to domestic violence issues, and at the Department of Justice a new victim advocacy unit will help women take their cases to court. Provisions giving the police more authority to act in domestic violence cases are also being rewritten into the new draft of the criminal code.
"All this amounts to zero," says Sevdije Ahmeti, a Pristina-based human rights activist. "This law has been too long in coming and the delay has cost the lives and well-being of women and children. Our social welfare system does not function to meet the needs of these victims, and our courts and police are institutionally prejudiced against them. There is really no instrument to protect them."
Luljeta is trembling. She saw her husband's car pass by the shelter the previous day. The sites of Kosovo's women's shelters are supposed to be unknown to the public. Under the new regulation, Cooper would be able to lock her husband up for violating his protection order.
Today all he can do is watch Luljeta cry. Cooper is in a bind. If he waits for the new law, Luljeta's husband may find her.
If he acts now, perhaps all the husband will get is a slap on the wrist and the sack from his job as a police officer with the Kosovo Police Service.
I have noted that the woman's husband is A POLICE OFFICER WITH THE KOSOVO POLICE SERVICE....AND AN OBVIOUS "former" MEMBER OF THE kla-thuggery-club AS WELL!!
JUST LOVELY...CALLING cherie blair....WOMAN'S RIGHTS LAWYER, WIFE OF THE BRITISH PRIME MIN-ASS-TER....THEY NEED YA' babe, GET OVER THERE AND BUTT-IN RIGHT AWAY!!
HEY, mad maddie half-bright...HERE'S A JOB FER YA....GET OVER THERE AND TELL THOSE GUYS NOT TO PICK ON THEIR WOMEN FOLK or YOU START KISSING ON THAT kla THUG, thaqi, once again.
HEY, klintoon...CAN'T YA' JUST FEEL THEIR PAIN...THE HUSBAND'S PAIN, I MEAN.
The UNMIK never writes anything bad about the albanians UNLESS it is TRUE!! They are scared shi+-less of them!!
And, I happen to know that police officer mentioned, in this article. He is a great officer from the area of Florida where my daughter lives. I hope he will fill us in on many of the crappy ways of the albanian muslim-monsters who abuse women and children in KosovO, when he returns. MAYBE RIGHT HERE ON FR!!!!
He is due back next year.
You are silly! Yours is not a mistake - it indicates you are not from these parts. Thassall!
FWIW, there are women in high positions in the UK trying to get the British forces to stay on.
Wonder if klintoon gets any $$$$ from his efforts to make KosovO an albanian mobster-haven....lots of albanians in NY....did they vote for or donate funds for hitlerly???
You're not having much of a second day here, are you, newbie? Are you on the right forum?
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