March 5, 2025 | Wednesday
“Dealing with collective trauma shifted my perspective beyond seeing myself solely as a physician.”
In the late 1990s, Feride Rushiti, founder and executive director of the Kosovo Rehabilitation Center for Torture Victims, came face-to-face with the reality of war-displaced people in Kosovo. At the time, she was a medical student in Tirana, and this experience completely changed the trajectory of her life. After the war, as soon as she returned to Kosovo, she founded the Kosovo Rehabilitation Center for Torture Victims (KRCT), which has become a leading organization in healing, advocacy, and articulating the needs and rights of women and men who survived sexual violence during the 1998-99 war in Kosovo. In the following conversation, Rushiti shares the story of her journey and the organization’s path from its founding to this year’s nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Europe House Kosovo: Can you tell us about the beginnings of your activism?
Feride Rushiti: My journey began around September 1998, when various international organizations were sending shipments of medicine as part of humanitarian aid. These packages often came in sizes that were difficult to manage in the field. As young medical students in Albania, we attempted to organize ourselves to do something for Kosovo. So, we mobilized to create smaller, more manageable packages that could enter the war zone and be handled by paramedics.
Later, I heard about an organization—the Albanian Rehabilitation Center for Trauma and Torture—that had started working with displaced people. We took the medicine packages there, thinking that those seeking help from the center should also have access to medication. Two weeks later, the person managing the humanitarian aid asked me to find a pharmacist to oversee the distribution of these medications. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a pharmacist willing to volunteer, so I told myself, “A physician can replace a pharmacist, but a pharmacist cannot replace a physician!”
That’s how I started working as a pharmacist at the Albanian Rehabilitation Center for Trauma and Torture, managing these medications. Over time, as the number of displaced people grew, so did the need for physicians. That’s when I started working as a physician. The organization had psychiatrists, neurologists, gynecologists, and general practitioners on staff. I initially started with the idea that this would be volunteer work, but over time, I was offered financial compensation—which, for that time, was quite good.
Europe House Kosovo: How did you start working as a coordinator at the Albanian Rehabilitation Center for Trauma and Torture?
Feride Rushiti: Over time, the workload increased. So, we started recruiting new physicians, and since I was already very active, I was offered the position of coordinator. Our first training in Psychosocial Intervention with UNICEF took place in November 1998. During that training, we learned how to work with children—what the right approach is for traumatized children.
Then, in January, I continued working, recruiting new people, including students and physicians. By the end of January, we were informed that the number of refugees in Kukës was rising dramatically. Since I had received trained by UNICEF in Psychosocial Intervention, there was a need for me to go to Kukës as the only team member from Kosovo, alongside three young women from Albania. They told me my presence was necessary because we were working with children, and language dialects played an important role as well. I immediately said, “Gladly!” We were transported to Kukës by helicopter. Kukës was overcrowded. International humanitarian organizations didn’t even have space to set up tents.
I worked in the area near the mosque, where mostly women without husbands were sheltered, alone with their children. From 08:00 to 17:00, I worked with children. After 17:00, I voluntarily went to the border, where the first wave of displaced people was arriving. Eventually, I was also called in for individual cases.
That was where I first met women who had been raped. That experience completely changed not only my professional path but also my life, shaping me into the person I am today. I saw that these women simply could not talk about what had happened to them.
As a physician, you may understand the concept of rape and its consequences. But when you hear firsthand accounts of rapes committed in front of family members, the most brutal forms imaginable, the forced stripping, the humiliation—when you witness the full scale of abuse—you realize that this is an entirely different dimension of suffering.
Europe House Kosovo: This is a very special story—how you renounce your primary calling to pursue a mission. So, from being a physician, you returned to Kosovo and founded an organization like KRCT?
Feride Rushiti: Dealing with collective trauma shifted my perspective beyond seeing myself solely as a physician. It was a period when you couldn’t document, record, or even think of yourself as a physician in the way physicians typically do—sit down and have the time for proper bedside manner.. No, the question was: “What needs to be done first?”
All these life-changing challenges made me reflect. Even though, until that moment, I had never imagined myself in any profession other than medicine, this entire experience pushed me to think that when I returned to Kosovo, I needed to create an organization where these women I had listened to—and men as well—could have a safe space to simply express themselves freely. Of course, returning to Kosovo was a challenge in itself. .
Europe House Kosovo: How was the process of returning to Kosovo and founding the organization?
I returned to Kosovo around June 15. In the beginning, my main focus was assembling a team. I went to the UNHCR Office in Kosovo to submit the concept paper for registering the organization. There, they told me that no such service existed in Kosovo yet and directed me to UNMIK. When I went to UNMIK, I met a physician from Finland who said: “You have inspired us to realize that Kosovo actually doesn’t have an office for registering civil society organizations.” Based on my application, they ended up establishing a department for NGO registration, and in December, I received KRCT’s official registration certificate. That was the administrative side of things.
In terms of the overall process and testing this initiative, almost everyone I spoke to told me it would be impossible—that “[The survivors] wouldn’t open up”…On top of that, Psychosocial Support was a completely new concept for me. I had only three days of training. But in wartime conditions, I can’t say that training lessons were what guided me—what guided me was my heart and the pain of the people I listened to.
The beginning was met with a lot of skepticism—it was dark, uncertain, and obscure. At the same time, the WHO [World Health Organization] started working in Kosovo, organizing mental health coordination meetings, which I attended. These were the circumstances that prevailed when we began our work. At first, we thought we should work in Prishtinë, organizing media activities. Then we tried television, but that didn’t work very well either.
We started organizing fieldwork, and that’s when I realized that as an organization, we needed to have our headquarters in Prishtinë, but our real work was in the field—where the affected people are, where the pain is. People deal with their pain in the field. We formed a team for fieldwork and prepared a very simple brochure for that time titled, “Normal Reactions to Abnormal Events.” The war was an abnormal event, and the reactions to it were normal, as it involved numerous human casualties and great harm.
We would sit in the fields, gather women and men when they came, and talk about these events. There, you could see a woman sitting silently, with her head down. She was a typical victim, as we had learned about their reactions. But even when we tried to talk with such women, it was impossible for them to be unaccompanied by a family member, as the issue needed to be addressed strictly within the family. This, of course, was due to stigmatization, the culture of honor tied to shame, and so on.
Gradually, we started inviting them to the organization because, under those circumstances, it was impossible to create a safe environment elsewhere. Meanwhile, they needed to talk, because when the trauma is fresh, a person needs to unload, to express themselves to someone. So, at first, we invited them to the organization; they came under the pretense of getting medication, and then we connected them with the psychologist, psychiatrist, and gynecologist who were engaged at that time.
Europe House Kosovo: How did the organization expand its outreach across Kosovo?
Starting in January 2000, we extended our satellite centers to Skenderaj, Pejë, and Deçan. When the conflict in Macedonia broke out, we also established a center in Gjilan. We had centers in Malishevë, Rahovec, and Podujevë as well. In each center, we had two physicians and one nurse. You might ask, “Why?” Because there were only two qualified psychologists in all of Kosovo. One of them was on our staff, but they didn’t have the capacity to cover all the needs. We then began training these physicians and nurses on the psychosocial approach related to war trauma. Initially, our activity focused on crisis intervention. Later, we created professional teams and started thinking beyond services—about advocacy, training, legal reforms, policymaking, scientific research, and even documentation.
Europe House Kosovo: How did the EU join your mission?
Feride Rushiti: We started the organization with the EU! Our first project was EFE, European Funds for Emergency. The EU created the structure of the organization, and in addition to that, after funding under EFE, we received funding from the European Institute for Democracy and Human Rights. We also received funding directly from Brussels. It was the line item for “Torture Rehabilitation, Torture Prevention.” Working with the EU was akin to attending graduate school for us, because the EU project administration is such that, once you get the hang of it, working with other donors becomes pretty straightforward.
So, up until 2008-2009, we operated mainly with EU funds, though occasionally even after that period. The consolidation of the organization was made possible by the EU. How come, you might ask? Because the projects were implemented in three-year cycles, giving you the opportunity to develop internally, provide services, and share experiences externally. Thus, the support from the EU has left a mark on the organization, helping us to consolidate.
Europe House Kosovo: How did the nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize come about?
Feride Rushiti: Before we talk about that, I should note that individual meetings with various international delegations and representatives are crucial to us. I believe that is where the direct sharing of experiences and pain takes place. Whenever such delegations visited Kosovo, I brought the victims to ensure that everyone understood these events truly happened, because crimes in Kosovo have been denied for a long time.
The nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize was an indescribably emotional moment. It is the greatest honor that can be bestowed upon an organization or an individual. I am referring specifically to the nomination, not the prize itself, because I believe the prize should be awarded to those who need greater ore visibility and support—especially people in currently war-torn regions.
The nomination is especially significant as a testament to the resilience of the women we have supported over time. This is especially important for these women and for Kosovo, as we are now in a new global era where crimes of sexual violence are being recognized.
The nomination itself was a victory—not just for us as an organization, not just for me as an individual, but for the cause we represent. Above all, it holds great significance for the modern history of Kosovo. Regardless of whether we win, simply being among the nominees is a form of recognition. This recognition is especially important at a time when war crimes are being denied in many forms. I believe this serves as the best counterpropaganda, elevating the cause to an international level
Furthermore, the very fact of the nomination is, even for the women currently experiencing violence, an international call to action—that sexual violence as a weapon of war must be stopped!”