Gendered Aspects of Migration from Southeast Europe The research The project  

Öùôïãñáößá
Teuta as a bride, Permet 1988.

« For boys it’s different. Boys are boys and they do whatever they want. Girls…should not have an affair or anything else. Or friends. Nothing. That’s the way our tradition is. You know, the tradition in Albania. Maybe here in Greece it’s not a problem for cousins for example to have this kind of problem in their relationship. But in Albania this in fact the case. That is, if a girl has an affair, they’ll start talking about her. Then if she breaks off the affair and her time has come to get married, people will start gossiping and there’s even the possibility this girl will never to get married at all, because of the things people have said about her. That’s why parents and cousins and all these people are so afraid. And that’s why they don’t let their children -namely the girls- go out. »

Zana (18, Albania )

« Because our situation is different. I don’t know how to behave. You come to a country that’s very liberated from a country where you have to preserve your customs. But I won’t stick to them so much because I’ll totally lose my girls. I’m thinking, "What’s going to happen? Should we go backward?" …I am telling her, "Georgia you’ll find a boyfriend, when you feel ready." "But I love him! What do you keep telling me all the time, mom?" And the youngest chips in, "Oh, no, please stop, stop, you turned me off," she tells me. "I don’t want him anymore." »

Sofia (38, Albania )

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