Prepared by: Altin Hazizaj
and Thornton Barkley
of the Children's Human Rights Centre of Albania-CRCA

Dear Participants,

Dear Colleagues,

The trafficking of human beings including women and children is not a new phenomenon for the ex-communist countries. Twelve years ago the opening of our countries towards freedom and democracy did not bring only hope and delight to many people, but also disappointment and victimization of some others.

Twelve years of changes throughout the region, many unsolved conflicts, internal poverty and immigration have brought out new phenomena that have touched the core of our human life: the freedom. These years for our countries have not been only years of working for freedom and economical development, EU membership, but also have been the years where an unaccounted number of children, young girls, and women has been trafficked to western countries and returned to beggars, slaves, servants and prostitutes.

The dream for freedom and wealth has become a life nightmare. While people who organize the trafficking are becoming richer and richer, being able to influence politicians, police officers, custom staffs and justice system. Tell me how many of them so far have been sentenced by the courts? How many of them have been arrested? How many of them have been let free because of "lack of evidence"?

However only recently many governments in Eastern and Western Europe have started to think about common policies and actions to fights the trafficking of children, young girls and women.

Child trafficking in Albania

Albania was one of the last communist countries to throw away a dogma that kept the country closed for fifty years. As all of you should know Albania has a land border with Greece, Macedonia, Kosova and Montenegro and shares a large part of Adriatic see with Italy. Only recently the Government of Albania has taken a full range of measures to fight child trafficking.

1. Trends of child trafficking

We are not sure when Child trafficking in Albania began, but it is widely believed to be linked with these major phenomena:

- Widespread poverty and desire to get quickly rich;
- Prostitution in the neighbouring countries;
- Employment in non-formal labour sector in western countries, and;
- Total lack of border control and corruption of police officers in the origin countries.

Albanian gangs in Albania and Italy found very easy links with Italian mafia and for many years illegal passage of small boats to Italian coast were never stopped by the Albanian police. While the land border with Greece made it very easy the illegal cross bordering of children. This was accompanied by massive immigration of population especially to Italy and Greece. Today there should be more than 400 thousand Albanian emigrants to Greece and more than 100 thousand others in Italy. These massive movements of population made it easier for children to be trafficked, hidden, kidnapped or abducted. Many families, children and young girls were bribed by gangs, who were offering them a different world from theirs. They were offering easy and quick money, employment, and future. Most of these people in reality ended up on the streets of any western country working as sex slaves, beggars, and window cleaners.

One of the most common forms of trafficking of young girls for prostitution was the institution of "fiancé" or "marriage". Parents were let to believe that their child would have such a secured life in Italy or anywhere in Western Europe.

Other forms of child trafficking used especially in the first years of democratic changes in Albania was the abduction of children, whether boys or girls. Data are not available, but many researchers believe that many children were trafficked using this method.

And the last method was the sale of children. This in fact has been the most common way for the trafficking of children in Albania, but especially for the trafficking of children from other countries such as Moldavia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia and Russia. Human dealers selling and buying children (especially young girls, which later on will be used for prostitution) broke any law and bribed any state official, just to develop and protect their slave market in Eastern countries.

2. Routes of trafficking

The main routes of trafficking so far known to have been used include: Moldavia-Romania-Ukraine to Serbia and Montenegro and from there to Albania (Shkodra and Vlora were considered the bases of the Albanian dealers). Vlora for many years has been the paradise of trafficking of human beings towards the Italian coast. Other routes went from Serbia to Hungary and then towards the western countries.

3. Legislation

The Albanian legislation needed ten full years to be changed and preview measures against the trafficking of human being and severe sentences for traffickers. Only during 2000 in the Criminal Code new amendments were added, making the organization of human trafficking a severe crime in Albania. Trafficking of young girls for prostitution, or slavery is also condemned by the new changes of legislation.
Parallel to this the ILO Convention 182 for the Elimination of Worst forms of Child Labour was translated into Albanian and in August 2001 was approved by a presidential decree.

The new legislation made it easier for the courts and prosecutors to arrest, judge and sentence the organizers of the trafficking. During 2001 and 2002 is believed that more than 180 people have been sentenced and imprisoned for the organization of human trafficking.

4. NGO response

The non-governmental sector in Albania has been one of the most active parts of the society that very quickly was involved and organised for the elimination of child and human trafficking in Albania. Early researches in Italy, Greece and Albania show that the trafficking of human beings has reached the peek of 30 thousand women and young girls working as prostitutes in the neighbouring countries. The Government believes that 4 thousand children have been trafficked for prostitution, slavery, begging and other forms of labour, while more than 9 thousand children are reported by the Italian sources as being un-accompanied.

At the early stages the NGO's focused more on the public awareness on the phenomena hoping to sensitise the public about the consequences of trafficking and on the other side to pressure on the government to implement new legislation and strengthen the enforcement law structures to fight the trafficking of human beings.

In fact the time and the money up to 2000 were more focused on the discussion of the problem, strategic planning, but in reality the trafficking developed in the same numbers. NGO's started to focus more on the social side of the issue only when first trafficked children, or women were sent back to their origin countries.

Many of us understood that public campaigns could not work without having a system in place for the elimination of child trafficking, but also for the rehabilitation of victims. On the other side we did understand that we could not work without our government, despite the fact that we liked or not people who govern our country.

IOM and Save the Children in Albania had carried out researches on the scale of child and women trafficking. Despite the fact that those researches lacked the data and findings, still they were a good tool for the NGO's round Albania to see the problem in different way and try to find means and mechanisms to tackle it.

The Children's Human Rights Centre of Albania - CRCA assisted by the American Embassy in Tirana produced four documentary films aiming to show the consequences of child trafficking. The films were shot in Italy, Greece and Albania and show the reality of children's lives when trafficked, consequences of trafficking in their lives, their involvement into organised crime etc. These films were shown in one of the national TV channels in Albania and were a very good tool for the sensitization of the public opinion and especially the Government officials on what measures were needed to tackle the problem.

CRCA also participated in Second Congress against the Sexual Exploitation of Children in Yokohama, Japan, where together with other eastern European countries were prepared an Action Plan that will be implemented for the next five years.

At national level CRCA has strongly contributed with experts and advice in the preparation process of two major national strategies of the Albanian Government: The national strategy for children in Albania and, the national strategy against human trafficking. Both these strategies and other measures taken from NGO's are now a strong tool in our hands for the implementation of new programmes that consist in the rehabilitation and re-integration of trafficked children in the social life of Albania.

5. Governmental response

As stated above the Governmental response came very late and because of national and international pressure. The new amendments in the Albanian Criminal Code and the approval of new national strategies of the Albanian government have made easier the implementation of new measures at political and practical level.

A new Anti-trafficking Directorate in the Ministry of Interior has been established and has branches at almost every town in Albania with the main aim the criminal investigation of any case related to the organization of trafficking of human beings. At the political level, more and more politicians have clearly expressed their political will to fight trafficking of children at all levels.

Finally the establishment of a Delta Force (police force to tackle the illegal cross-bordering) and the arrests of recent weeks of many traffickers in the area of Vlora, Shkodra and Durres, and the sequestration of all illegal boats has resulted at least this month with not a single person being anymore trafficked to western countries.

6. Today and tomorrow

The trafficking of human beings and especially children and the people who organize it will of course seek new ways to organize their "business". This means that even at NGO and governmental level are working for the elimination of child trafficking, new forms of trafficking and illegal cross bordering may be found.

At the NGO level we believe that the focus should no be turned to the rehabilitation of all the children that have been trafficked abroad, and the return of children to their families and countries of origin. However, faced with old mentalities and criminalisation of children by the society at large, could prove difficult for the re-integration of trafficked children. For this we have to work closely not only with families of children, but also to change the mentality and attitude of our societies on child trafficking especially for children who have been working as prostitutes in western countries.

All these measures can be taken alone. The organization of a network at a European level, and exchange of information between all potential partners, should reach a higher level, in order to be sure that the child trafficking does not exist anymore in our countries and that our children can have a bright future.