Mitrovica's Mitrovica exiles confess violence by boyfriend: He forced me to have sex with no will, he beat me

Morging Kaytazi, a lawyer from Mitrovica who decided to leave his family and career in Kosovo, would experience physical and psychic violence for about two years from his husband.

In 2016 she decided to get engaged and go to the United States, with her Kosovo boyfriend, who had been dating for two years.

Shortly thereafter, after pressure from her fiancé, she married and decided to stay in New York.

Something I never knew about him was that it was violent”, says Mergim. Three days after his residence, the first dispute between the couple began.

I remember we were in the bedroom, he was talking about something and I just turned my head and told him I didn't want to hear”, she tells Radio Free Europe.

Shortly thereafter, she says that her husband grabbed her by the arm and held her head on the bed, holding her breath for about 30 seconds.

God, what's going on” was all that exile could think of, because it says she wasn't even realizing that her husband could hurt her that way.

Just a week later, Mergim began his work, and that day the husband attacked her and choked her again after she had used deodorant in the kitchen.

That was shocking and I took this as a personal failure. I quit my job, family, and society (in Kosovo). My brain did not perceive that I am the victim of violence”, she says.

The attacks continued, according to her, for various reasons.

When he decided to beat me, I knew it. Whatever I would say didn't matter”, Mergim relates

Among the frequent attacks, according to Mergima, included hand bites to bloodbles, slaps, and fists to torture so as not to let Mrrgmen sleep.

She also had to have sex with her husband, or she would beat him.

“Abusers and victims are not only seen as”

Feeling guilty and very afraid to tell her family, Exile endured physical torment for a long time.

Help did not find even from the husband's family, who were told that “should wrinkle your mouth” and that “the women are looking for [the violence]”.

She also shows that she felt helpless about being alone in a foreign land.

I was once out of the house running to the Police Station, but it caught me and returned”, she relates.

I knew no one would believe me because he's a charming man”, says the Migration

Something that she says needs to be known by everyone is that marital violence occurs in people of different profiles.

She says that even the abusers ' manipulating abilities and the victim's guilt sense silences the victims.

The “abusers are at the same time the best manipulants in society. They manipulate you so much that they make you doubt your” reality, she says.

The climax of this situation reached 2018. She managed to record him, providing evidence of his attacks.

The police arrested her husband. He spent a night in prison, was sentenced to forced community service and sent to a rehabilitation programme regarding abusers.

However, Mergime's tranquillity came with a protective order that assured her that her husband would not contact or approach her or be sentenced to five years in prison.

She is still living there, and programs in the United States have helped her to obtain residence permits as well as receive psychological assistance.

“in Kosovo must change perception that women are worth less than men”

(MergimeKatazi)

Although Exile experienced violence in a much more developed state than Kosovo, she strongly believes this violence has a source in patriarchal thinking.

The biggest problem in Kosovo is that [some] Albanian men grow up in that way that they really think they have the right given to God to beat a woman and to beat a human being, she says.

Protests and riots against violence against women in Kosovo began again in recent days following the 18-year-old girl's murder by Ferizaj on Sunday 22 August. Suspects of this murder are her partner and another man.

Exile has also followed reactions to the occasion, saying that the victim's guilty culture and the reasoning of abusers is still present.

The “Dunger is a bully and receiving is his and it never fails to change”, she declares.

Besides that the state, according to Mergimes, should have proper mechanisms for preventing and condemning violence against women, she says society, as well as the raised voice of victims of the situation, could help other victims.

If my story helps only another woman out of this situation, I am the happiest in the world”, she says.

By June 2021, according to the Kosovo Police, two cases of women's murder were recorded, while seven women were killed in 2020.

According to data only until June 2021, 1,132 domestic violence cases were recorded, 1,063 victims of such cases were women.