“Shame is not ours, it belongs to them,” is the call of Ramadan Nishori, the first survivor who publicly speaks about sexual violence. For more than 26 years, he kept silent about the horrors he experienced. Today, on the Memorial Day for Sexual Violence Survivors, he shared the entire story that forever changed his life in front of the Kosovar society.

The man, around his fifties from Drenas, said that the reason he has courage to speak publicly is because he doesn’t want to remain a prisoner of the past.

“I am a man, a father, trying to build a normal life. I have a wife who has supported me at every step of life, and three children who are the light of my eyes and mean everything to me. I want people to see me as a person who has been through many things, someone who has suffered a lot but never broken. I do not want people to feel pity for the violence I endured. I want them to respect me as someone who fought hard to survive. As someone who fell many times but always got back up. I am here today not because I have forgotten what I went through, but I am here so that I do not remain a prisoner of the past,” he said.

The end of September 1998 is a time that Ramadan Nishori, then 22 years old, says he will never forget. While recounting his public testimony, he recalled the event that changed his life forever, remembering how he was taken to the police station in Drenas where he was sexually assaulted.

“After a while, they started the paraffin glove test, and around midnight, my turn came. I entered and did the test, and I had to wait in the corridor. There were rooms where they would interrogate us. There was also an Albanian who worked with them, everyone knew him. That day, he had the role of an interpreter. While waiting in the corridor, as the police were coming and going, two policemen in uniform opened the door, grabbed me by the arm, dragged me, and took me into a bathroom where the worst thing that could ever happen to a person occurred. I never imagined this would happen to me. One of them assaulted me, and as the second one prepared to do the same, the Albanian who was there knocked on the door, came in, and pulled me out of there,” he recalls.

He further recounts how civilian police officers had threatened him with the words, “What happened to you, you can never tell anyone.” Nishori says the inhuman maltreatment did not end there, as the next day he was taken to the Pristina prison and later to Lipjan prison.

The sexual violence survivor is also a witness to the massacre at the Dubrava prison, about which he said, “At that time, death was peace for me.”

The traumatic event haunted him even after the war, with Nishori saying that every night he was reminded of what he had gone through.

“Only I know, how hard it was. On March 16, 2001, I was released from prison with the help of the Red Cross. At that time, I was engaged, and two weeks later, I got married. At that time, I lived with my parents and brothers in the village, and after getting married, I told myself, ‘I will leave the past behind and start a new life, to build a family.’ But this was impossible. Every night, I was reminded of what had happened to me. I lived in fear that someone might find out what had happened. After a year, we decided to live in Fushë Kosovë, where I felt a little freer, but I was still locked inside,” he recounts.

What had happened to him remained a secret for many years, and he never found the courage to seek professional help.

The first man to publicly speak about being sexually assaulted by Serbian forces also shares the moment when he revealed his story to his wife.

It was not easy for him to share this horrific event with his children either.

Ramadan Nishori from Drenas said that after sharing his story with his family, for the first time, he felt like a true father.

“Shame is not ours, it belongs to them,” says Ramadan Nishori as he calls on all survivors.

His daughter Flutura says that family support has great value.

Vasfije Krasniqi-Goodman, the first woman to publicly share her story of sexual assault, said that Ramadan Nishori’s story will now transform into courage for all victims.

The director of the Kosovo Rehabilitation Center for Torture Survivors (QKRMT), Feride Rushiti, also stated that Ramadan’s testimony is a rare act.

The number of people raped during the recent war in Kosovo is unknown, but reports suggest around 20,000. Their stories remain untold because survivors still fear stigma and prejudice, and remain silent.

On April 14, 1999, Vasfije Krasniqi-Goodman, who was 16 at the time, was kidnapped by Serbian police forces and taken to the village of Babimost, where she was sexually assaulted.