Human Trafficking in [Albania Street Children in [Albania] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Albania] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery - The First Decade of the 21st
Century, 2000 to 2009 -
Albania is a source country for men, women,
and children trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced
labor, including forced begging. Albanian victims are trafficked primarily to
Greece, and also to Italy, Macedonia, Kosovo, Spain, France, the U.K. and
other Western European countries, as well as within Albania. Available data
indicate that more than half the victims of trafficking are under the age of
18. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking
in Persons Report, June, 2009 [full country report] |
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CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** HELP THE CHILDREN www.crca.org.al/newsletters/2004/newsletter224.htm At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT DISCUSSES
THE ORGAN TRANSPLANTS IN ALBANIA - According to these articles, a clinic in Fieri city, practices the removal of the children organs
to further transport them in Italy and France, with involvement by Italian
and French groups and individuals», writes Karamanu
in her letter. «According to the media, these doctors mobilise
Albanian networks, which pay the children’s parents whose organs are removed.
Apart form this, figures report 39 missing children with no trace in Albania
and their parents making no effort to find them. For Albanians,
It's Come to This: A Son for a TV Fatmira Bonjaku's
husband is in jail, accused by the police of selling their 3-year-old son to
an Italian man in return for the television set that six other children watch
in the family's dimly lighted room. The police also say her husband had plans
to sell their newest born, whom she is breast feeding. Over the past 12 years, since the
collapse of Stalinism here, a substantial trade in children has established
itself in Albania, Europe's most impoverished and long most isolated country. ***
ARCHIVES *** U.S.
Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - The trafficking of Albanian children as young as 6 years old to Bur of Democracy, Human
Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2006 WOMEN - Many communities, particularly
those from the northeastern part of the country, still followed the
traditional code--the kanun--under which, according
to some interpretations, women are considered to be, and were treated as,
chattel. Some interpretations of the kanun dictate
that a woman's duty is to serve her husband and to be subordinate to him in
all matters. Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – Internal
trafficking increased during the year. TdH
identified and assisted 126 trafficked children, approximately 53 of whom
were internally trafficked. Children were generally trafficked for forced
begging or sexual exploitation. Roma and Egyptian communities were
particularly vulnerable due to poverty and illiteracy. In a few cases
children were bought from families or kidnapped, reportedly for begging or
working abroad. According to TdH, children, mostly
from Romani and Egyptian communities, were increasingly trafficked for
begging by their parents without the involvement of a third party. The main forms of recruitment
involved marriage under false pretenses or false promises of marriage to lure
victims abroad for sexual exploitation. Due to the poor economic situation,
men and women from organized criminal groups also lured many women and girls
from all over the country by promising them jobs in Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2005 [70] The Committee notes the
concerns expressed by the State party at the extent of the problem of sexual
exploitation of children in actioncenter.polarisproject.org/the-frontlines/survivor-testimonies/38-testimonies/66-testimony-of-er "My name is E.R. and I am from Elbasan.
When I was 15, my parents married me, against my will, to a man aged 35, whom
I did not love. So started my miseries.
Not too long afterwards, I abandoned him and returned to my family.
But my parents did not accept me back because I had dishonored them by
leaving my husband. I had no support and nowhere to go. I got acquainted with
a boy who was 20 who said he loved me and promised to marry me. He convinced
me to go to Italy for 'a better life.'
I thought my sufferings now were at an end, but I did not know the
real hell that was expecting me. I was compelled to work on the street. I did
so for nearly three years. My exploiter savagely battered me frequently,
mainly when I did not bring home the required sum or when he faced drug
trafficking problems. Replenish
rock band see “evils of human trafficking” in Albania During the five-day trip, Ross
Gill, Harun Kotch and
Darren Lewis from the band Replenish met women and children who had been
victims of trafficking, including Nazire*, a young
woman who had been abducted at knifepoint and trafficked to Greece, where she
was forced into prostitution. Nazire’s family was
later able to secure her release but because she reported her kidnappers to
the police, she and her family live in constant fear of reprisals. Training
Roma to combat human trafficking Through a contribution of the
Norwegian and Finnish governments, the Council of Europe is organising training courses to prevent human trafficking
of Roma from Albania, Moldova and Slovakia. Albanian
PM: government has aided human trafficking Widespread corruption in Albania's
judicial system and government has exacerbated the country's human
trafficking problem, Prime Minister Sali Berisha acknowledged on Monday, and criticized law
enforcement authorities for not tackling the problem adequately. Authorities
arrest 80 mobsters operating between Italy and Albania Carabinieri in the Calabrian
town of UN Special Rapporteur ends visit to Albania In the area of child trafficking,
Albania has several achievements to report: the legislative and policy
frameworks are in place; there is more awareness in society; the police is
better trained to deal and investigate this crime; border control improved;
the establishment of the court of serious crimes and the prosecutors' office
for serious crimes increased the prosecution capacity; NGOs gained a valuable
expertise in delivering rehabilitation programs for victims of trafficking
and in providing social services to communities. All this did not exist 5
years ago. They are important achievements. UN
expert fighting sex trafficking calls for child protection system in Albania The new Government of Albania has
improved the legal framework necessary to reduce the flow of trafficked
children, but it must develop a national child protection system aimed at
combating the poverty that drives exploitation, a United Nations human rights
expert said
after completing his visit to the Balkan country. Balkans
Urged To Curb Trafficking Countries in The Greek government estimates
that there are some 3,000 unaccompanied Albanian children in the country,
with more coming during the summer months. In oral evidence about the
trafficking of Albanian children to Albanian State Should Collaborate With NGOS see.oneworld.net/article/view/103054/1/3187 At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] Helga Konrad,
OSCE Trafficking Representative, has declared that Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 3 Civil Liberties: 3 Status: Partly Free Human Rights Overview
by Human Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide Stop Violence
Against Women
– Country Page U.S. Library of Congress - Country
Study Republic
of Albania - [from
Amnesty International Report 2007] Trafficking - Despite increased,
and to some extent successful, measures to counter trafficking, Albania
continued to be a source country for the trafficking of women, often minors,
for sexual exploitation. Children, many of them Roma, continued to be
trafficked to be exploited as beggars, for cheap labour,
crime or for adoption. According to official statistics, in the first six
months of the year, 119 criminal proceedings were registered with the Serious
Crimes Prosecutor's Office relating to charges of trafficking women for
prostitution, and five to charges of trafficking children. - htcp HUMAN TRAFFICKING - Progress notwithstanding, there
remain many obstacles to the implementation of the government’s
anti-trafficking strategy. Particularly problematic is the government’s
reluctance to recognize that Albania is a major country of origin.
Prosecution of traffickers is the weakest link in the system: only a small
fraction of those arrested by the police were successfully prosecuted and
tried. Even when traffickers are found guilty, they received prison sentences
that were generally much lower than the new statutory minimum of seven years.
Police corruption and the absence of a witness protection system also hinder
investigations. HELP THE CHILDREN www.crca.org.al/newsletters/2004/newsletter224.htm At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT DISCUSSES
THE ORGAN TRANSPLANTS IN ALBANIA - According to these articles, a clinic in Fieri city, practices the removal of the children organs
to further transport them in Italy and France, with involvement by Italian
and French groups and individuals», writes Karamanu
in her letter. «According to the media, these doctors mobilise
Albanian networks, which pay the children’s parents whose organs are removed.
Apart form this, figures report 39 missing children with no trace in Albania
and their parents making no effort to find them. Child
Trafficking in EU countries [PDF] In Italy the organisation
Save the Children counted 7823 unaccompanied children between June 2000 and
November 2001, almost 4000 of them from Albania, followed by children from
Morocco and Romania. In July 2002 the Albanian government reported 6075
unaccompanied children in the neighbouring states
(3971 in Italy and 1730 in Greece). According to the police at least 2800 of
these children were being exploited as drug couriers, thieves or prostitutes. Trafficked children in Greece
mainly come from Albania, but also from Bulgaria and the former Yugoslavia.
For some time now they have also been coming from Iraq. - htsc [6f] TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS - Police and prosecutorial
investigations, focusing on traffickers who smuggled young women from Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine,
Moldova, and China and forced them into prostitution, resulted in the arrests
of almost 200 citizens and foreign nationals. ..... By September, police had
arrested 18 people on charges of exploitation and alien smuggling for
trafficking at least 67 children from Albania
to Italy for sale to childless couples. For Albanians,
It's Come to This: A Son for a TV Fatmira Bonjaku's
husband is in jail, accused by the police of selling their 3-year-old son to
an Italian man in return for the television set that six other children watch
in the family's dimly lighted room. The police also say her husband had plans
to sell their newest born, whom she is breast feeding. Over the past 12 years, since the
collapse of Stalinism here, a substantial trade in children has established
itself in Albania, Europe's most impoverished and long most isolated country. Child trafficking
in eastern Europe: A trade in human misery International federation Terre des
Hommes estimates that 6,000 children between the
ages of 12 and 16 are trafficked from eastern Europe each year, with more
than 650 being forced to work as sex slaves in Italy. The price of a girl
trafficked to Italy can be between $2,500 and $4,000, with up to $10,000
being paid if she is a virgin. According to the French human rights organisation, Albania is the county most involved in the
sex trade, with women and children being lured to go to the West with false
promises of marriage, jobs or education. When they get there, there is no
husband, no job and no education. Alone in a foreign land without any means
of support, violence and coercion ensure they are soon earning money for
their new “owners.” Police estimate that 10,000
illegal immigrants are working as prostitutes in Britain today. Many are from
Eastern Europe, brought here by ruthless Balkan pimps who sell them into a
life of enforced vice for as little as £150. A
smuggler’s paradise - There’s money to be made on the roads of southeastern Europe. On a broad plain south of Tuzi lies a sprawling, ramshackle refugee camp next to
the huge city dump. Traffickers in sex slaves hold girls kidnapped from as
far aw.ay as Romania here before they are shipped
across the Adriatic to Italy, according to the Albanian Interior Ministry. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC §
107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use |
Human Trafficking in [Albania Street Children in [Albania] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Albania] [other countries]