00:00:03an extraordinary turn
00:00:07Antonia yang is a British writer who’s
00:00:09travelled here regularly since 1989 with
00:00:17her guide blendy Deborah Antonia is on a
00:00:20mission to find some albanian women who
00:00:25have opted to live as men they’re known
00:00:29as sworn virgins a sworn version is a
00:00:33person in Mersin in Albania but also in
00:00:37in Bosnia and southern Serbia this is a
00:00:41woman who has sworn to live her life as
00:00:44a man and the reason that this happens
00:00:47is really a social situation whether or
00:00:50not enough men in the family while
00:00:52women’s rights are gaining a foothold in
00:00:54the capital in northern Albania
00:00:56traditions die hard men maintain power
00:01:00both politically and socially the only
00:01:05way a woman can have the rights of a man
00:01:07is to take an oath of celibacy and
00:01:09become a sworn virgin
00:01:15Antonia first met posh csoka lea in 1994
00:01:21although pashka decided on her own to
00:01:24become a sworn virgin it was a choice
00:01:26born from a cruel fate mean yeah
00:01:29mccoggins una vida my childhood had many
00:01:31software’s because my father died when
00:01:33my mother was still pregnant with my
00:01:35uncle and when I was one year old my
00:01:37mother left me and I grew up with my
00:01:39uncle and father’s mother she was their
00:01:42sole provider if she married she’d have
00:01:45to live with her husband and abandon her
00:01:47uncle and grandmother law in your
00:01:48theatre tomorrow then her uncle got sick
00:01:52and was sent to a hospital miles away
00:01:55Momo’s doc Mele is a woman I had no
00:01:57possibility to drive I needed to walk to
00:02:00travel a lot to dress with trousers and
00:02:02not to be seen as a woman by age 35
00:02:06unmarried and alone pashka had tired of
00:02:09her hard life as a woman she opted to
00:02:12become a sworn virgin for pashka it was
00:02:16a choice about gender not sex lesbianism
00:02:21in rural Albania is an unknown concept
00:02:23their culture recognizes only
00:02:26traditional male-female relations
00:02:31pashka says she has no regrets about not
00:02:34having children nor does she feel she’s
00:02:37missed intimacy with a man sex is such a
00:02:40minor part of life that in the Society
00:02:42of the very traditional rural areas it’s
00:02:45not something that that they themselves
00:02:48can imagine but pashka feels that
00:02:53today’s generation should not follow in
00:02:55her footsteps
00:02:56Asli voice no become a Snooki to know
00:02:59young girls I would recommend what I
00:03:01have done so because now life is more
00:03:05open the society is more civilized in
00:03:10our schools better educational but I
00:03:12know there are many choices to join we
00:03:15see but in case they want to take the
00:03:17decision as I took it she was in a boil
00:03:19I would recommend a hundred times to
00:03:22think about it because once you make it
00:03:25you should stick to it
00:03:29Antonia believes there are only about
00:03:31100 sworn virgins left in northern
00:03:34Albania but as change comes to this
00:03:38remote and wild corner of the world
00:03:40she thinks the practice may not survive
00:03:42I would imagine that that Swan virgins
00:03:47will die out in the in the end but I
00:03:49think it’s still going to take quite a
00:03:50while
”