Child Protection
Several thousand Albanian children, mostly Roma and Egyptian, have been trafficked mainly to Greece and Italy to sell wares in streets, wash car windows, beg, or perform sexual services. In general it has been observed by many agencies that child trafficking has become less obvious as trafficking methods are changing and becoming more difficult to detect.
The Albanian Government has taken steps to address child trafficking, primarily to curb the activities of the traffickers but there has been little progress in addressing the needs of trafficking survivors or in implementing effective prevention and reintegration programmes.
What is Save the Children doing?
Our work against children’s violence and sexual abuse aims to reduce vulnerability to trafficking among children and youth from and within Albania, and is being implemented through child trafficking prevention activities, and advocating with key stakeholders. These include those at the local and central level, encouraging them to improve policy and legislation on child trafficking and violence against children at school and ensure the functioning of national referral mechanisms.
On 2001, Save the Children started to tackle child trafficking in number of ways focusing on prevention, protection and reintegration. We contributed towards establishing a national protection and reintegration system for victims of trafficking, mainly through helping to create the first shelter for trafficked girls and women. From 2001-2005, about a thousand girls and women have been accommodated in the shelter and received psychological, medical, social and legal assistance. We also provided vocational training and job placement to help women and girls reintegrate into mainstream society.
Today, SCiA’s work on child protection consists on:
Supporting the
Socio-Educative Centre for Integration in Tirana (SECI) we aim to reach the most vulnerable children, mainly Roma/Egyptians 6-16 years old, trafficked, street children and children who are considered to be at risk due to extreme poverty and family circumstances. From 2002-currently, in partnership with the Children of the World and of Albania, (FBSH) a local NGO, that runs this centre, we support children by providing them with education and information on life skills.
Via the school integration programme, we provide children with basic education. Most of these children never have been to school, so catch-up classes for children and young people are offered to those who could/did not originally enter the school system. About 40 children every year are enrolled in public schools and follow education regularly.
Life skills training sessions are organized through biweekly group discussions with the participation of teenagers from the community (boys and girls 12-15 years old and 14-18 years old). These group discussions focus mainly on trafficking, exploitation of children, HIV/AIDS, norms and rules in the society and other social issues that concern teenagers. Hundreds of teenagers have obtained life skills and are better able to protect themselves about risks and trafficking.
Recreational activities such as sports, music events and community celebrations are organized as well which helped children to further develop and practice their gained knowledge, skills and talents.
We also support and work directly with youth helping them to understand the risks they face and to find ways of reducing their vulnerability. This done in two.
Youth Centres, located in Cerrik and Kucova. The centres’ mission is to help youth find ways to make a better future for them in Albania. Activities and services at the centres include arts, music, a library, computers, English classes, debates, workshops and sports.
Offering challenging and stimulating activities that lead to the development of life skills is one of the main goals of our programme with youth. These activities do also tie in with other specific skills that youth can gain such as cooperation, teamwork; communication, problem-solving, decision-making, critical thinking, responsibility and leadership. We supported and trained thousands of youngsters from the Youth Centres of Cerrik and Kucova. They have improved life skills through regular youth debates and peer to peer sessions organised at the centres.
Youth Centres are run by the youth boards, comprised of 9 boys and girls in each centre, who also design, plan, implement and document the centre’s activities focusing on youth social development.
The main activities organized by youth in the centres:
Series of workshops on peer to peer methods which enable youth to deliver peer to peer training with each other.
Training sessions on trafficking in human beings, HIV/AIDS, communication and gender inequity.
Youth forums and debates on social issues that concern youth, skills training courses on relationships with family, teachers and friends.
Other challenging activities such as competitions on geography, history, literature, foreign languages. All the youth centres activities are planned organized and facilitated by the youth board members.
Main advocacy achievements
At the national level we are striving to ensure the establishment of Community Protection Units (CPUs) that will provide identification, referral and support services to trafficked boys and girls and those victims of violence and abuse. SCiA has established one CPU pilot in Kucova and in collaboration with Terre Des Hommes will support and build the capacities of the frontline workers in these units.
To contribute to decreasing the incidence of violence and abuse of boys and girls at home and school, in-depth secondary research was conducted. Through this research we aim to identify and address influential psycho-social and other factors that lead to violence against and abuse of children. The findings of the report highlight the very high prevalence of the issue within the education school system, impact on children’s lives and particularly the potential ways of tackling this important problem that affects thousands of children every day.
Save the Children in Albania (SCiA) has gained a strong advocacy position. As member of the executive board of BKTF (The Albanian coalition ‘All together against child trafficking”) SCiA has contributed to stronger advocacy for the adoption of successful approaches for child trafficking prevention and protection.
We, along with other BKTF members, provided comments and technical assistance to the Albanian Government for the Bilateral Agreement with Greece for the protection of Albanian children who are victims of trafficking. This was signed in February 2006 and calls for the establishment of a National Authority (by law) responsible for the implementation of the Agreement (s). The ultimate result was the inclusion of child- specific components in the newly approved legal documents and structures for the establishment of National Referral Mechanisms for children at risk and victims of trafficking.