by MARJOLA RUKAJ
Woman in wedding dress, Tirana, Albania May 2011. Image: Mathias/Afroboof’s Photostream
(WNN/OBC) Tirana, ALBANIA: A secret crisis for women is happening in Albania. It has to do with a women’s health, identity, chastity and marriage. According to confirmations by doctors at gynaecological clinics in Albania’s capital city of Tirana, up to three young women each day are undergoing a surgical procedure in Tirana: a simple 20-minute gynaecological intervention to become virgins again.
Usually falling between the ages of 18 and 30, these women have decided to put their past sexual relations behind them physically as they decide to ‘present themselves new’ as virgins to the man they have chosen to marry.
Operations in secret
Banned by gynaecological clinic rules, most operations are performed in secret. While they are not banned or mentioned in any piece of the Albanian law, medical secrecy is the code doctors use in handling the procedure by those who request it.
According to Tirana based gynaecologists and sociologists, this has become a growing phenomenon in the past 20 years. Experts outline that much of the problem may be due to a high Albanian male emigration to Western Europe.
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