Ikbal Çika

Ikbal Çika (died 1956) was an Albanian journalist and campaigner for women's rights. She is largely considered as Albania's first woman journalist.

She came from an intellectual family. Born in the early 1900s she was the sister of the translator and philosopher Nebil Çika.^[1]

In the years 1925-1926 she worked as a primary school teacher. In 1926 she started working for the newspaper Demokraci, in which she authored a column dedicated to women's emancipation. Later she became the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Arbëria and owner and publisher of the newspapers Java, Shpresa Kombëtar, Ylli i Mëngjesit and Gruaja Shqiptare.^[1]

In the mid-1930s, she led efforts against face veiling, through her journalistic work and articles in the magazine Java, calling for drafting a law that would force women and girls to remove their face veils. This issue became so public that it took the form of a reform movement, which culminated in the passage of the law in 1937.^[2]