The Make It Yours! tournament was Kosovo’s first 10s touch rugby tournament for female teams from Klina, Obiliq and Plementina. With more than 50 players aged 11–19, it was the largest all-female rugby tournament held in Kosovo.

The purpose of the tournament was to raise awareness of land rights: registering land properly and ensuring that women and girls receive their equal share of inheritance.

Only around one-fifth of registered properties in Kosovo are registered in women’s names—one of the lowest proportions in the region. This can leave women dependent on their husbands and families for their security and survival. In the 21st century, this is no longer acceptable. Families must register their land and divide inheritances equally to protect their sisters, mothers and daughters, allowing them to lead independent and fulfilling lives.

Revolution Rugby, which works to spread rugby across Kosovo, also believes in developing independent and resilient women. Rugby is new to Kosovo, but the women’s game is growing rapidly around the world. Women’s rugby now has professional, semi-professional and elite competitions in countries including the UK, France, the United States, Italy, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. Rugby sevens is also an Olympic sport, while universities in several countries offer scholarships or other support to talented rugby players. 

Rugby is a sport in which you throw the ball backwards and run forwards. Discipline, teamwork, sportsmanship and respect are among its central values. That sense of equality, both as an individual and as part of a team, is what we seek to develop in our players.

It also means teaching our players that they have an equal right to occupy their space. Neither their ethnicity nor their gender should determine their rights or their place on the field.

The tournament itself turned out differently from what we had imagined. Some players did not demonstrate the discipline we expect on the field. We therefore gave the main award to our brand-new team, the Obiliq Golden Star Girls, in recognition of their positivity and sportsmanship.

It would have been easy to pretend that nothing had gone wrong and that everything was perfect. For us, however, it was more important to uphold our values of fairness, equality, sportsmanship, passion and discipline. Empowerment also means expecting players to accept responsibility and respect others.

The project extended beyond the tournament. We held a lunch with the mothers and female relatives of the Plementina players, explaining the project and what it meant. We also sent information home with every player so that their parents understood the purpose of the tournament.

Following these activities, several mothers approached us to ask for help with their property rights. This was the most important immediate result we could have hoped for. ATRC assists people with property claims free of charge, including by engaging lawyers where necessary.

The tournament could not resolve the wider inequality in women’s property ownership. But it did create a route through which women and their families could seek practical assistance. On the field, the girls claimed their place; beyond it, their families began asking how women could claim the property rights that already belong to them under the law.

Bronwyn Jones 

Director, Revolution Rugby

The article is sponsored by ATRC- Advocacy Training and Resource Center