A lesbian couple from Albania who are fighting to be recognised as joint parents of their twin daughters say they will take their case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) if the country’s top courts rule against them. Alba Ahmetaj and Edlira Mara cannot both be registered as parents of the two-year-old girls under Albanian law, and they are refusing to state that Mara – the biological parent – is a single mother. “We are not treated like every citizen, we are second-class citizens,” Ahmetaj, 43, who works at rights group ProLGBT with her partner of 13 years, told Openly during an interview in the capital, Tirana.