UN Women

Description: The study on the effects of blood-feud on women and girls has a particular target group. The phenomenon of blood-feud in Albania originally was a customary law practice that regulated breaches of ‘honor’ through self-justice. Women and girls were excluded from it, therefore did not face the threat of death. The practice was revived in the Albania of early 1990s, but with variations of application, which included mundane revenge murders and extra-judicial killings, the most common of which due to land or property disputes. Lack of rule of law and legal literacy has resulted in the prevalence of the phenomenon up to the present day, and the self-isolation of several families in Albania, in particular in the north. While executed women remain rare, the women and girls of the families in or under the threat of blood-feud are directly affected by the situation as the self-isolation (ngujim) of the males in the family turns them into the only breadwinners in an environment not particularly friendly to women, especially when there is no male figure in the public space to ‘defend’ them. Hence the need to investigate how blood-feud is affecting women and girls, as well as how they can contribute to address the problem, minimize it and eventually eliminate it.

Implementation date: January – April 2013

Donor: UN Women – United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women