Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...

Psychosocial Notebook, Volume 2, October 2001
united. These are the only crimes for which prohibition under the Kanun,
however rigid it is, cannot allow for a degree of flexibility, cannot make
room for reason and the institution of mediation.
Recent practice, however, has provided instances of rape and responses not
aligned with Kanun norms. Instead of exploring the possibility of revenge
towards those who committed this crime, most missions of violent retributive
punishment have ended on the person of the victim. In no possible
interpretation, however, does the Kanun law advocate the victim’s repression
or condemnation. Rape is not treated as the victim’s transgression, but
as the unforgivable immorality of the rapist, or as a call to revenge. The
Kanun makes no mention of the victim in the context of retaliatory measures.
In other words, the rape of women is understood and treated as accidental,
a terrible misfortune, not as a circumstance which seals the victim’s
fate. The Kanun makes no reference to the victim as stained, polluted or
fouled, but rather, discusses the dishonoured family, home, brotherhood
and/or kin. Violence committed against women, according to the Kanun,
cannot be “cured” by her expulsion and public judgement. Customary law
provides no alternative but revenge taken on the rapist, and responsibility
for this falls on the bearers of arms, not on the defenceless woman. An illustration
of this was narrated to me many years ago by Mark Doshi, one of
the men legendary in the Upper-Shkodra Highlands for his ability to mediate
and settle blood feuds between families:
In a village in the vicinity of Shkodra, two prestigious families entered
into a conflict which soon culminated in the rape of a woman. One of the
women was abducted and held in captivity for three nights. After the
third night, she was set free. There was no dilemma regarding the actions
that needed to be taken. There was, nonetheless, a dilemma as how to
create a framework to correspond to the weight of the crime which would
also be in accordance with customary law, especially as there was a
growing risk that armed conflict could emerge with more far reaching
consequences. Whole groups of mediators could not find an adequate
formula for a resolution. Later on, my intervention was required, since
according to custom, once those close to the family fail, more distant
mediators can become involved. Without giving it much thought, I
offered this solution: the family that had abducted the woman, although
they claimed that they had not abused her, would have to give the victimized
family one of their mature women to be held for the same period
of time as the victim. After this period, the damage would be equalized
and the case would be closed. There would be no need for a blood feud.
But what happened was what I had expected: the guilty party did not
accept this solution. Their alternative proposal was that they be made to
suffer three blood feuds. And that is what happened! The family of the
abducted woman killed three male members of the guilty family in an act
of revenge, as an equivalent to the three nights the woman was made to
spend in its house. And thus the case was closed. 3
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