- ALBANIA WATCH -
| This section of Captive Daughters highlights specific sex trafficking blights in Albania, while providing information on other groups or initiatives that are committed to ending sex trafficking within this country. |
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Albania emerged from decades-long communist rule in 1991 as a struggling, impoverished country with little economic viability, high poverty and unemployment rates and a plethora of corrupt officials. These factors made the country prime territory for the illegal trafficking market to take root, smuggling drugs, guns and women. Ranging in age from 14 to 35, girls trafficked from Albania are among the youngest victims worldwide, with as many as 80 percent of them younger than 18, according to a 2000 Save the Children report.
ACCOUNTS OF TRAFFICKING IN ALBANIA
(From "Child Trafficking In Albania" by, Daniel Renton for Save the Children)
“Three weeks ago (January 01), I took a couple to Vlora. She was very beautiful and about
16 years old. Her fiancee was telling her that they would get married in Italy. But he was
tricking her, because I know he’s a trafficker and he’s already happily married in Berat. In
Berat all the men are trafficking – it’s what people do here.” (Berat taxi driver)
“In January 2001, a man from Libofshe sold his wife, sister in law and 6 year old child.
With the money he paid some judges to get his brothers released out of prison. The police
are now investigating him. The wife went to Greece and the sister went to Italy. No one
knows what happened to the child.” (Fier Discussion group)
"A 15 year old Albanian girl called the Shkodra women’s helpline in January 01 to say that
she was being prostituted along with another Albanian girl and an Italian. She had been
deported from Italy and was back in the hands of traffickers. The helpline staff heard an
argument with a man that they presumed to be her pimp and the telephone hung up.”
(Shkodra Women’s Helpline)
“Five months ago a 15 year old in the village of Verbas got engaged to a man that wasn’t
from the area. The man presented false parents. He took her to Italy where he tried to
make her become a prostitute. She refused and escaped and returned to Albania. She has
gone back to her family. They don’t blame her.” (Lushnja Discussion Group)
“A year ago (January 2000) I was on the bridge in Lezha and I heard two men talking to a
woman from Kakariq. They asked her to get two girls between the age of 18-22. She
agreed a price of $400 for each of them. I told her she deserved to be beaten because she
could have been taking my daughters. Three days later there were two girls abducted in
Kakariq on their way to see the local nuns.” (Shkodra discussion group)
ALBANIA IS LABELED TIER 2 ON THE US STATE DEPARTMENT WATCH LIST
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. Most sex trafficking victims are women and girls between the ages of 15 and 25, and 90 percent are ethnic Albanian. - From the 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report, US Department of State
Read the Albania section of the report here at UNHCR
- Read the latest news about sex trafficking in Albania -
• Besa's Story - In 2000, 16-year old Besa was kidnapped, beaten and forced into prostitution as a form of punishment towards her family for being politically oppositional . (From: Human Rights USA)
• Sex Traffickers Prey on Eastern Europeans - Traffickers lure young women with promising jobs in Italy or elsewhere, but instead use the so-called "Balkan Route" to move women through Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia, Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo for the purposes of sex trafficking. (From: Radio Free Europe)
• On Speedboats, Albania's Sex Trade Could Flair - So many women, men and children had been trafficked abroad to work as prostitutes, forced laborers or beggars that the Albanian government three years ago barred all Albanian citizens from using speedboats, the favored transportation used by traffickers to get people out of the country. (From: New York Times)
• Albania Sees Little Progress in Human Trafficking - Albania is still a hotbed of human trafficking according to a US State Department report. Data presented in the report indicates that more than half the victims of trafficking are under the age of 18. Most sex trafficking victims are women and girls between the ages of 15 and 25, 90% of whom are ethnic Albanian. (From: Balkan Insight)
