I have to admit that I did not really buy into the idea of the anti-trafficking “heroes” that are listed in the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. I bet if you talked to many of the heroes on the list, they will tell you that they were only doing what they felt they had to do. Please do not get me wrong, I knew these heroes were doing amazing work but I have always found the term a bit cheesy.
However, this year, I was forced to change my mind when Vera Lesko was named a 2009 TIP Report Hero. I met Vera in 2007 while conducting research on human trafficking for sexual exploitation in Albania and the surrounding region. I traveled to Vlora in southwestern Albania to meet and chat with Vera and tour the Vatra (“Hearth”) Center. The Hearth opened its doors in 1997 as an NGO dedicated to helping young people in need.
Vera saw the need to focus on trafficking because this was the biggest problem at the time in that part of Albania for young people, particularly women. As a result, Vatra opened a shelter in 2001, the first shelter for trafficking survivors in Albania. One of the first things that I noticed about this shelter that set it apart from others was the atmosphere. While people were sad, this was not a place of sadness. There was hope in this place and a tremendous force for good, personified by the amazing Vera Lesko.
While the 2009 TIP Report Heros blurb glosses over it, Vera was facing a number of serious obstacles to her work at the time that I met her. Funding for the shelter had all but dried up, she had received some small awards from the US & UK Embassies in Albania but the rent for the shelter and linked apartments was expensive. Further, Vera looked wan and wore a headscarf because she was battling breast cancer. She was having trouble paying her medical bills and had to travel regularly to Italy to get cancer treatments. Vera had also suffered public beatings as a result of her work helping the most vulnerable in society.
What you do not read in the TIP Report is that the state police protection for Vatra was taken away. Vera was forced to hire a private security firm, yet another drain on her expenses. The local and national government have gone numerous times to Vatra to check that it is “up to standards” but, as Vera wryly pointed out to me, she helped to write the standards. Even though the government tried to block her work, Vera persevered. She managed not only to keep the shelter open but to expand the scope of her work. I am honored to have had the opportunity to meet Vera and I still marvel at her pioneering spirit.
According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, a hero is “a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability; an illustrious warrior; a [wo]man admired for her achievements and noble qualities; one that shows great courage.” While I normally eschew this type of terminology, Vera is the very definition of a hero. The amount of courage she has displayed in fighting trafficking is truly awe inspiring. Vera gives me hope that we can make a difference in the fight against trafficking, that we can ultimately win, even when the odds are so severely against us. Not only has Vera shown great courage in fighting trafficking, she has done so in a frequently hostile environment and, what is more, she has inspired others to do the same.
By Ayesha AhmadOctober 12, 2008I recently traveled to Albania.
Up until the late 1990’s Albania was under communist rule, its influence barely felt by other countries. Today, however, Albania has developed a reputation as one of the world's human trafficking hot spots. Autonomy and freedom are on the rise in Albania after the end of the communist era. The country’s poverty and the war in 1997 have led to a surge of people wanting to taste freedom, to escape the country’s shackles and pursue a better life.
On my trip I visited the city of Vlora. In this picturesque seaside city, a terrible tragedy occurred just fours years ago in 2004. A motorised dinghy transporting trafficking victims and operated by organised criminal gangs was attempting to cross the waters from Albania to Italy, a well-worn route. In the peak trafficking years between 1997 and 1999, authorities say that as many as 10,000 people, mostly Albanians, illegally emigrated to Italy every year. The boat capsized. Frantic mobile phone calls were made from the trafficked victims to their families who were immobilised by panic and helplessness. A phone call was also made to the national TV channel in Albania begging for help to reach them. This help never arrived and 21 of the 29 passengers drowned.
Such instances were more frequent a few years ago. On the event that the police were spotted on shore in Italy, the Albanian trafficking victims were forced into the water by the gang member operating the boat. Many lives were lost as a result of this practice.
I spoke with some young Albanians not much older than myself. They had paid a great deal of money to be taken out of Albania into Greece illegally during the war. So many lives risked in the bid for freedom, yet the irony prevails each time. The ones that die during the journey perish with their dream of freedom intact. The ones that survive and make it to the other land, however, are held captive and enslaved.
Although they survive, their dreams of freedom perish.
From the U.S. Department of State
ALBANIA (Tier 2 Watch List)
Albania is a source country for women and girls trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor; it is no longer considered a major country of transit. Albanian victims are trafficked to Greece, Italy, Macedonia, and Kosovo, with many trafficked onward to Western European countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Norway, Germany, and the Netherlands. Children were also trafficked to Greece for begging and other forms of child labor. Approximately half of all Albanian trafficking victims are under age 18. Internal sex trafficking of women and children is on the rise. The Government of Albania does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so.
The Government of Albania is placed on Tier 2 Watch List for its failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat trafficking in persons over the past year, particularly in the area of victim protection. The government did not appropriately identify trafficking victims during 2007. It also has not demonstrated that it is vigorously investigating or prosecuting complicit officials.
Recommendation for Albania
Vigorously investigate and prosecute human trafficking offenses as well as law enforcement officials’ complicity in trafficking, and convict and sentence persons responsible for such acts; enhance training of law enforcement officials within the anti-trafficking sector; ensure full implementation of the national mechanism for referring victims to service providers; increase funding for victim assistance and protection services; draft and implement a new national action plan with participation from local anti-trafficking NGOs; provide anti-trafficking training for peacekeeping troops.
Prosecution
The Government of Albania did not provide convincing evidence of progress in law enforcement efforts to combat human trafficking during 2007. Albania criminally prohibits sex and labor trafficking through its penal code, which prescribes penalties of five to 15 years’ imprisonment. These penalties are sufficiently stringent and exceed those prescribed for rape. In 2007, Albania prosecuted 49 alleged traffickers and convicted seven human trafficking offenders. Seven of the prosecutions were for child labor trafficking. The sentences for convicted traffickers were appropriately severe, ranging from five years’ imprisonment with fines to 16 years’ imprisonment with fines. It is unknown if the government prosecuted and convicted additional traffickers under other statutes because the government does not separate crime statistics by trafficking offences. During the reporting period, regional anti-trafficking police units remained poorly trained and ill-equipped to effectively address human trafficking due to inadequate resources, the influence of corruption, and high turnover of police recruits. The government discontinued anti-trafficking training for new and continuing police officers, although training for judges and magistrates continued. Between June and July 2007, the government fired approximately 20 percent of its specialized and highly trained anti-trafficking police officers as part of an overall police restructuring effort. In three separate cases, the Ministry of Interior arrested 12 police officers accused of human trafficking in 2007, including six officers with direct responsibility for anti-trafficking at the border. Prosecutions of these cases and several other cases from the last reporting period remain ongoing.
Protection
The Government of Albania failed to consistently sustain efforts to identify, refer, protect, and reintegrate victims of trafficking during 2007. The government’s ability to fund protection and assistance services was limited; however, it operated one victim care shelter in Tirana. The government provided sporadic in-kind assistance to four additional NGO-managed shelters, such as the use of government buildings and land. In July 2007, all five shelters signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen cooperation and coordination among the shelters. In a change during this reporting period, there was an overall decline in the number of victims identified due to inappropriate application of the national referral mechanism for several months by anti-trafficking police. In 2007, the government identified only 13 women and seven children as victims of trafficking during the reporting period, a 25 percent decline from the 25 victims of trafficking reported by the government in the 2006 reporting period. According to the government and other observers, authorities identified as victims only those who proactively identified themselves as such. At the same time, however, NGO shelters reported 146 victims of trafficking during the reporting year. Victims are not jailed or fined for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of their being trafficked. The Albanian witness protection program is available for victims of trafficking who participate in prosecutions; however, evidence suggests that the system is ineffective for victims of trafficking. In 2007, one young woman was re-trafficked to Greece by her trafficker’s brothers following her testimony that put him in prison. Child victims, many of whom were trafficked by their parents, were more often returned to their parents than placed in protective custody.
Prevention
The Government of Albania implemented several anti-trafficking prevention activities but allowed its national anti-trafficking action plan to expire. The Ministry of Interior took over funding of the national toll-free, 24-hour hotline for victims and potential victims of trafficking from the UN Office for Drugs and Crime and IOM in November 2007. The Ministry of Education includes in its high school curriculum awareness of the dangers of trafficking. The government continued implementation of an anti-speedboat law, outlawing virtually all water crafts along the Albanian coast and leading to a significant drop in trafficking in persons to Italy, most of which has been accomplished in the past by boat. During the reporting period, communication between the government and NGOs improved following a period of strained relations. The national anti-trafficking coordinator and the police director-general held meetings with NGOs that led to improved communication between government and NGOs by January 2008, particularly at the border crossing points. As of March 2008, the government had not distributed a draft 2008-2010 national anti-trafficking action plan for comment to international partners and NGOs. The government did not provide evidence that it makes efforts to prevent its peacekeeping troops deployed abroad from engaging in trafficking or exploiting trafficking victims. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism produced banners that are being posted at 15 border crossing points to discourage child sex tourism and alert border-crossers that sexual relations with children is a crime in Albania.
By Agnieszka Rakoczy
From the Financial Times:
Brikena Puka’s well-groomed look and confident style suggest she works for an international corporation. In fact she is the administrator of the Psycho-Social Centre “Vatra”, a non-governmental organisation that tries to prevent human trafficking and help its victims return to a normal life.Vatra (the Albanian word for “hearth”) is based in the southern port of Vlora.
“We co-operate with the police throughout Albania. Most of the women we assist are referred to us by them, but we also have cases sent to us by other NGOs. Some girls come on their own and some are brought by their families,” Ms Puka said.
Vatra offers accommodation, medical assistance, individual and group psychological treatment, vocational training, legal assistance and help with establishing contact with their families. It also works to alert communities at risk about their vulnerability to trafficking. It has assisted about 1,200 victims, of whom half came from the Roma and “Egyptian” communities, the country’s poorest.
Ms Puka says women are lured by traffickers using fake engagements, actual marriages, and job offers. A number were kidnapped. Some of the victims are sold by their families. Others go willingly.
There are no accurate figures on how many Albanian women have been illegally trafficked abroad and forced to work as prostitutes since the end of communism in 1991. A senior government official says a frequently-mentioned figure of 30,000 is too high.
The US government’s “Trafficking in Persons” report issued last June listed Albania as a “Tier 2” country, the category for countries still not complying fully with minimum standards for elimination of trafficking. But it added that Albania “is making significant efforts to do so”.
Two years ago the Albanian government placed a three-year ban on speedboats and other small private vessels using its coastal waters, in effect closing one of the most popular routes used by drug and people smugglers.
Reforms of the penal code have made all kinds of trafficking a serious crime, punished with prison sentences between seven and 15 years and heavy fines for those found guilty of trafficking women or children.
The government has launched a national strategy for combating trafficking in human beings, covering prevention, conviction, and victim protection and rehabilitation. “It is a very important document,” says Iva Zajmi, deputy interior minister and national co-ordinator for anti-trafficking in human beings. “It is about slavery of our citizens. It is the government’s job to help these people.”While the number of victims may be dropping, the forms of exploitation are changing, she says. On the other hand, women know more about trafficking and its attendant risks.“
"People have been informed and warned, and we have signed co-operation agreements with police and prosecutors in other countries so it is not that easy any more,” Ms Zajmi says.
According to the US report, 57 traffickers were convicted in 2006. But only 20 out of 227 suspected or identified victims offered to testify against traffickers.While victims are allowed to file civil lawsuits against their traffickers, this rarely happens because of widespread mistrust of the police and the judicial system, the report said.Read the full article
