Linda, Drenka and Antigone are like most 18-year-old girls on a summer break. They spend their afternoons sitting at downtown cafes, dressed to the hilt in the latest fashions, shyly eyeing the boys strutting past them.

But this summer, there was something more pressing on their minds than seaside vacations and dating: the war of independence raging throughout their tiny Yugoslav province of Kosova.
Albanians had long believed the ethnic conflict in Kosova could perhaps be solved peacefully - through demonstrations, by establishing parallel institutions like private schools and medical clinics, and by simply not taking part in anything dictated from Belgrade.

But the slowly festering wound finally broke into an abscess early last spring, when Serb forces took their first swipe at the shadowy Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) in Drenica. As horror stories emerged of atrocities in surrounding villages, the atmosphere in Kosova became so emotionally charged that, by August, women of all ages said they would give their eyeteeth to take up arms alongside their menfolk.

"I'd take up a gun myself if I weren't so skinny," says 19-year old Adelina Ismajli, Miss Kosova 1997. For others, body size doesn't matter. "I'm very merciful," says 21-year old Diana, handing out pictures of herself resembling an earlier incarnation of megastar Madonna. "But when it comes to a Serb, I would not hesitate."


Queuing up to join the Kosova Liberation Army It is difficult to envision women in one of the continent's most impoverished and rural areas taking their positions on the battleground, especially when the issue of women in combat is still hotly contested in North America and elsewhere.

While many young women here speak enthusiastically about their plans to join the KLA, it is not as easy as enlisting at the nearest recruitment office, explains Filiza Fazliu, a raven-haired 26-year-old who had hopes of joining. "You also have to have a man who can protect you in times of war. Sometimes you can go alone if you have the same ideology as the others. Then, in most cases, you can fall in love with a soldier and he will fight beside you," she says.
In reality, many Kosova women are reduced to acting as army nurses and cooks, and few have the privilege of brandishing a heavy weapon on the front lines. What is unique, however, is the role played by Albanian women in political movements throughout history and still today.

The most famous Albanian woman, the late humanitarian Mother Teresa, was born Gonxhe Bojaxhiu to an Albanian family in Kosova. Among Kosovans, she is considered the Great Albanian Mom. But today, ask any woman in Kosova and you'll also hear names like Queen Teuta (the most famous Albanian matriarch) and warriors Shote Galica and Ganimete Terbeshi, who fought alongside their husbands during the Balkan wars.

Today's female heroine is only known as "Flora", the wife of one KLA commander not seen in public since spring. "This is not a new thing for us today. It's acceptable for women to join wars," says Edi Shukriu, founder of the Women's Forum - a division of the main political party of Kosova Albanians, The Democratic League of Kosova (LDK).

For others, these women warriors are role models. Not surprisingly, the KLA membership's 'hipness' has risen with the help of Miss Kosova, who posed for photographers in camouflage garb. The cause has also been boosted by hit songs such as one by Ilir Shaquiri, whose female singer asks, "Hey, is there a gun for me?"


Kosovans vastly outnumber Serbs in the province The radicalization of Albanian society and the acceptance of non-peaceful methods of dealing with the conflict are not limited to those with most of the testosterone. In Kosova, the treatment of women and children has always been a flash point. Serbs have long accused Kosova Albanians of waging a demographic war, of having twice as many children in order to outnumber the local Serb population.

Women's organizations have thus played a paramount role in Kosova's human rights movement since the 1980s, when Serb President Slobodan Milosevic came to power, took away Kosova's limited autonomy and gave them the pink slip.

The first complaints focused on basic conditions. Until as late as 1970, women had no access to universities. Emancipation and urbanization are therefore relatively new phenomena. Albanian humanitarian organizations note that the position of women has worsened. Comprising nearly half of the employees in education institutions, women have been forced to leave school facilities without remuneration, following the 1990 law on primary and secondary school education.

Health care is also a major concern. Along with the purging of Albanians from state institutions, half of the staff of the Gynecological Clinic in have been dismissed, resulting in more natal deaths and a lack of access to basic medicines and gynecological services.

Police brutality has also been widely documented. According to the Council for the Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms in Prishtina, an Albanian organization, in 1996, 240 children and 269 women were ill-treated in various ways, mainly during in-house weapons searches. The organization's publication, The Bulletin, notes that 52 women and 32 children were subject to varying degrees of police brutality during the first six months of 1997.


Women and children who refuse to become victims Women and children have not been spared from death either. The Women's Forum of the LDK's most recent publication notes that 16 children and 13 women (among them three pregnant women) numbered among those 73 Kosova Albanians who died during the Serbian police and military attacks in the Drenica region in February and March of 1998. Since then, claims the Forum, women and children have also been killed indiscriminately by Serb forces in places such as Orahavac, where both Serb and KLA forces fought for control in late July.

"In spite of the many international covenants for protection of women, the only law applied by Serbia in Kosova is institutional violence," says the Report on violence against Albanian women in Kosova.

"Violence against women is growing," says Shukriu, adding that it's a noticeable phenomenon, even among her own staff, and showing pictures of herself and a colleague bearing the physical evidence.
Women like Shukriu say the only chance for improving the lot of women in this strife-filled province is to democratize society. Yet to judge by the impasse over the province's future, that will be a long way off.

But by participating in the current political movement, Kosova's female political leaders say they hope that equal treatment in war will lead to more gains in society. That is, the society they envision under the control of Kosova Albanians.


200,000 women actively working for the KLA Politically, women make up only a handful of those in power-wielding positions in Kosova, eight in the self-styled parliament to be precise. But according to the LDK's foreign attachi, Edita Tehiri, 200,000 women are involved in some form of activism. "I don't think under normal conditions it would be such a large number," she says.

Activism is driven by almost purely national concerns, not necessarily on behalf on women's rights, say the LDK's female members. "I feel myself as an activist, not as a femi-activist," says 33-year old Melihate Termkolli, who was the first woman representative in the Kosova parliament. "In reality, there is no feminist movement here because we are endangered as a nation and our activities are conducted as members of the nation."