"Even September mourns for me"
The voices of women who were denied the right to education.
Shemsije Havolli, who now lives in Austria, says she still feels, every day, the consequences of decisions others made that forced her out of school. Photo: Gentiana Pallaska.
Women's conversations –– in private spaces and mainly among female relatives, girls and women who have themselves been denied schooling –– have been and remain almost the only way these stories are articulated and passed on.
No matter how much she tried to go to school, even with her father’s insistence, leaving the house became a source of guilt: there were chores waiting for her at home.
For Hedije Shala, school became a source of guilt because her mother's death created new expectations for her to cook and care for her sisters and brothers. Photo: Gentiana Pallaska.
"I was good at school. First in class."
Sanije Hoti
Sanije Hoti was forced to leave school because she was "too grown up." To conceal her absence from inspectors, she was forced to pretend she was attending school. Photo: Gentiana Pallaska.
"I loved school so much, I loved it so very much."
Xhezide Bajraktari
Even though she was forced out of school, Xhezide Bajraktari held courses to teach literacy to other women. Photo: Gentiana Pallaska.
Entire generations of women became a driving force in breaking the cycle of denial they themselves had faced. The photograph was taken by Gentiana Pallaska during the exhibition "Denied" held on December 9, 2025, at Gallery 17. The exhibition, supported by Pro Peace, with Aurela Kadriu and Gentiana Pallaska as co-authors, was based on the narratives of women in this article and is part of a broader multimedia project on the same theme.
Although education has been denied to them, their awareness of and desire for it only grew. The farther they were kept from education, the more they felt its absence and understood its value.
Aurela Kadriu
Aurela Kadriu is a sociologist, researcher and cultural manager. Her research on memory, socio-urbanism, gender and human rights is focused on the recent history of Kosovo and the former Yugoslavia. She is the Program Director of Qendra Multimedia — a cultural organization dealing with cultural production, focused on contemporary theater and literature.
This story was originally written in Albanian.