Children speak out. Trafficking risk and resilience in Southeast Europe. Albania Report

CHILDREN SPEAK OUT: Trafficking Risk and Resilience in Southeast Europe-Albania Report”. This research project was designed to better help understand the risks and the factors that make some children more vulnerable to trafficking than others. It was conducted, from May 2006 to June 2007, in the framework of “Child Trafficking Response Programme in Southeast Europe” (CTRP), in seven countries/entities of southeastern Europe (i.e. Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and the UN Administered Province of Kosovo). The goal of CTRP is to reduce the vulnerability of children at risk of being trafficked through interventions focused mainly on prevention. The objectives of this research were to clarify and help to better understand the processes and mechanisms by which children are trafficked and exploited, including children’s views on these phenomena, and to increase the knowledge about the strengths and protection mechanisms that exist among children, their families and community as well as what interventions should be made by the state and the civil society in order to ensure the necessary protection to “most at-risk” children. The report reveals the important role of the family and the family circle in the trafficking process and it raises issues concerning the definition of trafficking and migration and, above all, on child exploitation. The research brings to light the deep knowledge children have in understanding the processes they are involved in and their will to consider themselves responsible members of the family, in spite of the difficulties such thing can bring them