print article

 send article

 created on: Friday, October 25th, 2013

 category: 
Albania, global

 Tag: 

This article is available in:

English, Arabic

Mara is 34 years old.

I hate being a woman…it is the biggest damage I have suffered in my life. I have done 11 years of prison and I have always thought that this happened because I was not a man. I am happy just for one thing that this sex gave me, the chance to become a mother. I am a different mum, not like my mum… I do not have nice memories from the relations I have had with her or with my entire family. My mum was quite dependent on what my father would say or do and I have always thought that she loved him more than me, the strong man who had control on everything.

It is my challenge to build another relationship, different than this. My day is my child. I wake up; prepare her for school and then I go at work, the most difficult part. It is not easy for me; I have to suffer twice, as an ex-prisoner and as woman. I hate being discriminated as a cause of the second; it is a horrible feeling and I have lost many jobs due to a common sense that we are not as good as them. What???In Albania the girl is raised to stay home, serve to her husband. OK I agree that these are important as well, but I have wanted to do other things with my life such as get a degree and my family has always been against this choice, because I am a mother now. I know that and she is my world.

When she comes home I have prepared her lunch and I pass my afternoon taking care for her, reading fairy tales, playing, being her friend and devoting myself to her entirely…My partner has accepted this part of me and he just enjoys seeing us together. She is not an impediment to my studies and I hope that in the future I will have the chance to finish my university and have a chance to work as a lecturer. I want to protect her from my mistakes and I hope that she will be free from all the prejudices I have suffered.