Balkan women face fight to inherit property

MUSHTISHT, Kosovo, Nov 18 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - During the Kosovo war, Serbian policemen killed Shyhrete Berisha's husband, Nexhat, and her four children aged from two to 16 in front of her.

Presumed dead, Berisha was loaded onto a truck alongside the bodies of around 50 other Kosovo Albanians, killed in the southwestern town of Suhareke on March 26, 1999. She escaped by jumping from the moving truck.

Berisha could not imagine then that she could lose more than her family but she has since also lost the home they shared, a house that belonged to her father-in-law.

After the war, she says, her mother-in-law told her: "What do you need the house for? Everyone's been killed. It's our house now."

Berisha's story is an extreme example of a problem across the Balkans - discrimination against women in inheritance cases.

In these patriarchal societies, property and assets often pass to the male heirs of the family, excluding women in spite of their legal entitlement to inherit.

Some officials and activists are trying to change attitudes through publicity campaigns and an increasing number of women are fighting for their rights in the courts despite resistance from traditionalists and slow, overloaded legal systems.

Berisha says the men in her husband's family struck a verbal agreement in 1997 on how to divide the family property. Her husband obtained part of a large house, where they lived. His brother and, later, his brother's son, got the rest.

But after the war, Berisha says she returned home and found the house locked. Her husband's family refused her a key.

"All I wanted was for them to tell me that I was welcome at home," she recalled at her parents' home in Mushtisht, a village near Suhareke.

LEGAL ACTION

With the help of international charities, Berisha received treatment abroad for her injuries and trauma. She now lives in Germany but returned to Kosovo this summer to advance a legal action with the court in Suhareke to win back her home.

Berisha looks older than her 52 years but her face brightens up as she speaks of her life with her husband, who worked as a clerk in a cultural centre while she looked after the children.

Her lawyer, Ymer Koro, says the law is clear. The property was passed to Berisha's husband and should belong to her.

Her husband's family tell a different story. Her brother-in-law, Xhelal Berisha, insists the property was in his father's name and was left to him in his father's will.

Berisha and her lawyer deny there is any such document.

Xhelal Berisha, meanwhile, has the keys to the house and rents out the shops underneath.

"I pay the property taxes so I get the rent," he said. "I have told Shyhrete: 'You are welcome in our house.' But she refused to come."

Years after Shyhrete Berisha began her legal action, the local court has still to rule on her claim to the property.

LAW VERSUS REALITY

According to Kosovo law, when someone dies, their assets are divided among family members with the spouse and children receiving priority. If a will exists, it can only exclude family members for specific conditions - none being related to gender.

The authorities have undertaken campaigns to promote gender equality, encouraging couples to ensure the ownership of their home is registered in both names. But home ownership is still often not registered and, if it is, only in the man's name.

Old traditions die hard. Many people still believe that property should be passed down through the male line, along with the family name. More than 79 percent of properties registered in Kosovo are in male names, according to official statistics.

In traditional communities, property disputes are settled by all-male meetings of elders, drawing on the Kanun, or Canon, of Leke Dukagjini, a collection of ancient Albanian customs.

Ali Pasoma, 58, leads meetings to resolve disputes in Vushtrri, about 25 km (16 miles) north of Kosovo's capital, Pristina.

"Property belongs only to the man. Even if a family does not have a son, the property goes to the male cousins," Pasoma said, citing the Kanun, at the office of the electricity company where he works as a porter.

"I cannot give my family property to my sister's husband - someone with another surname," he said.

"If something bad happens to them (my sister and her husband), I will protect them and invite them to stay at my house. But if they want to take my property, they are not welcome to visit my house."

Economic factors also play a role in the exclusion of women from inheritance in Kosovo. Parents have traditionally passed their home to their youngest son to keep the house intact rather than divide it up. The understanding is that the son's family will let them stay there and care for them in their old age.

FEMALE HEIRS EXCLUDED

Valbona Salihu, executive director of Norma, a group that advocates for women's rights in Kosovo, says her organisation has found cases of families removing women from the list of heirs when they register a death.

Some women also decline to exercise their right to inherit, which any heir is allowed to do under the law.

Even when the courts rule in favour of a woman's right to inherit, reality can be more complicated.

Two years ago, the husband of a 30-year-old woman living in northern Kosovo died from a heart attack. A court ruled she was the legal heir to an apartment registered to her husband, the woman said on condition of anonymity.

Renting, or selling, the apartment could have given her a much-needed income. But her parents-in-law refused to accept the court's decision. They still live in the property, while she raises her two children in a rented apartment.

Institutions including the Agency for Gender Equality, which has 17 staff, and the Kosovo Judicial Council are meant to ensure the state upholds women's rights. Yet neither body could provide statistics on how many women have pursued inheritance cases through the courts.

Norma has collected statistics directly from the courts. Its research shows women do take inheritance cases to court but less frequently than men. A report by the group, analysing court data from 2008 and 2009, also found that men were three times more likely to inherit than women.

Haxhi Gashi, a civil law professor at the University of Pristina, says people are becoming better informed about inheritance even though the state has neglected the issue.

"Every day, awareness about the importance of inheritance is growing," said Gashi, who plans to divide his own property equally between his daughter and son.

BREAKING WITH TRADITION

Fehmije Gashi-Bytyqi, 49, a lawyer in Pristina, is breaking with tradition. She inherited nothing from her parents but has already bought an apartment for her daughter, who is only 10.

"I wanted to be a model for my two sons; I wanted them to learn from their mother that property should be divided equally," she said.

In Kosovo, where more than 90 percent of people are Muslim, favouring men in inheritance cases is often associated with Islam, as well as with the Kanun. However, the practice transcends religious and political borders in the Balkans.

In mainly Orthodox Christian Montenegro, there are almost three times more male than female owners of property, according to a study of official data by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Bank.

Ibrahim Smailovi, a judge in the Basic Court in the capital Podgorica, said there was "a growing trend of women taking family inheritance issues to court" but no official statistics are available to confirm his assertion.

In Macedonia, discrimination in inheritance affects both ethnic Macedonians, who are generally Orthodox Christians and account for 63 percent of the population, and Albanians, who are mostly Muslim and make up about a quarter of the population.

Property owners in Macedonia are five times more likely to be male than female, according to the same FAO-World Bank study.

But Jovo Vangelovski, a judge in Macedonia's Supreme Court, said things were changing.

"The greatest impact on this situation has come from the education of women," he said. "That has had a major influence on overcoming these traditional values and accepting the rule of law."

(Editing by Andrew Gray and Belinda Goldsmith. Reporting as part of Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence, an initiative of the ERSTE Foundation and Open Society Institute, in cooperation with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network)