Trafficking in and Smuggling of People from/viaAlbania: Past and Present Criminal Developments[1]

Jana Arsovska

In September 2007, several Albanian newspapers reported that trafficking/smuggling of human beings, particularly to Greece, is being redeveloped in Albania. Only in the first week of September the police in Saranda have seized 263 persons trying to pass the Greek border illegally. In this case, only one Albanian citizen was detained on illegal trafficking charges (possibly for economic exploitation in Greece). The Greek police on the other side of the border detained two bus drivers on the same charges. Then, a few weeks later, Albanian officials from the Durres Police announced that a speedboat which departed from the Durres cost was carrying 16 clandestine emigrants and was seized in Brindisi (Italy). The two suspected traffickers were arrested by the Albanian police upon information provided by the Italian police. This article gives a brief overview of the development of human trafficking and smuggling channels in Albania in the period between 1991 and 2007 and it analyses the alleged ‘rise and fall’ of these illegal markets in the Balkans.

Trafficking/smuggling of human beings was considered one of the core activities of ethnic Albanian organised crime groups in the 1990s. There are approximately 7.5 million ethnic Albanians in the world, of which less then 3.4 million still live in Albania. Since 1991 more than 600,000 Albanians have left their country, which constitutes about 40 percent of the population between 19 and 40 years old (15 percent of the entire Albanian population). According to a study made by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs during the 1990s, the real unemployment rate in this period was 40 percent of total labour force (unofficial estimates point out that unemployment rate is as high as 70 percent) and 75 percent of the total population earned an income below poverty line (64 USD a month). These areconsidered some among many important push factors for mass emigration in Albania.

It has been reported that the Greek government expelled approximately 85,000 Albanian immigrants in 1991; 380,000 in 1992; and, 92,000 during the first six months of 1993. By 1994, Greek authorities estimated that between 600 and 1,500 Albanians illegally crossed the border each day. After the regularisation in early 2000s, the legal population of Albanians in Greece is estimated around 400,000. Similarly, in March 1991, hoping for a better life in the West, over 20,000 Albanians stormed the port at Durres and arrived at the Italian ports of Bari, Brindisi, and Otranto. Already by 2000, the legal population of Albanian nationals in Italy was estimated to be 140,000 which grew out of 60,000 in 1996. By 2004, the legal population of Albanian nationals in Italy was estimated to be 200,000 (Arsovska 2006).

Having in mind the deteriorating economic situation in Albaniaafter the fall of communism, illegal migration was not considered a serious offence by both common Albanian citizens and state officials. On the contrary, smuggling channels were often perceived as ‘beneficial’ and Albanians have been eager to leave their country (in a recent public survey more than 90 percent of the students in TiranaUniversity reported that they want to leave their country). Hence, in the beginning of the 1990s, smuggling of people from Albania to other Western destinations was spontaneous and not well organised (ad hoc smuggling) since there were not many risks and obstacles accompanying this migration process. However, after thousands of Albanians started illegally immigrating to Greece, Italy and other EU countries, EU officials required that Albanian authorities introduce stricter anti-trafficking measures in their country.This in fact served as a good opportunity for several criminal organisations to establish themselves and offer their criminal services to the Albanian population. About 25 criminal organisations, based mainly in Vlora, grew out of the emigration flows and responded to the demand for emigration. As a response to the anti-trafficking measures the criminal groups started to organise the smuggling/trafficking of people from/via Albania in a more professional way and they engaged in forging documents, corrupting officials, organising illegal transport, and providing visas to immigrants.

Several transiting flows emerged in the 1990s. First, Albanian criminal groups were mostly smuggling/trafficking Albanians coming from their own locality.Then, they started smuggling/trafficking foreigners from neighbouring countries through Albania and Italy. In the late 1990s, they expand their networks and smuggledforeigners (Turkish, Chinese, Kurdish, etc.) within international networks with Albania as a country of transit. Besides the smuggling activities, Albanians were commonly trafficking women and children through Albania/Kosovo for sexual exploitation in Western Europe. At the beginning, the trafficked women were predominantly ethnic Albanians, but from the late 1990s onward, Albanians started trafficking women from Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Bulgaria and other eastern European countries.In just a few years, ethnic Albanian criminals gained reputation in criminal and law enforcement circles for being ones of the most notorious pimps and traffickers of women for sexual exploitation. Trafficking of women was one of their first key activities in the West. Exploitation for prostitution was commonly regarded as a family business that does not require large investment and the money from prostitution were reinvested in other criminal businesses (drugs, arms, etc.) Albanians were engaged in.

In 2002, under the pressure of the international community, Albanian authorities in cooperation with other countries undertook various anti-organised crime measures to bring human trafficking networks down. The Albanian police organised 9 operations in the fight against illegal trafficking. In this year, 48 criminal groups were disrupted; 200 women rescued from trafficking; 486 women returned to Albanian from various EU destinations; 453 settled in rehabilitation centres, and 31 integrated into the society (Tabaku 2007). One of the most important joint police and prosecution operation organised in cooperation with Italian authorities was the police operation ‘Puna’ from 2002. According to law enforcement officials, the Albanian-Italian operation ‘Puna’ reduced human trafficking/smuggling from/viaAlbania (particularly via speed boats to Italy) to almost zero.

Nowadays, generally speaking, various sources point out that trafficking/smuggling of human beings from/via Albaniais no longer a core activity of Albanian criminal groups. According to statistical accounts, after 2003 human trafficking/smuggling in this region has significantly decreased. Many have attributed this success to the improved legislation and enhanced cooperation between various regional and international actors operating in the Balkans.[2] In relation to human trafficking, international organisations have also confirmed that the number of foreign women identified in Albania as victims of trafficking has decreased rapidly after the second half of 2002. In Albania, 32 foreign victims were returned home through IOMs return programme in 2002, but only 15 in 2003. The Vatra Centre in Vlora has also assisted fewer foreign women, 13 in 2002 and only 3 in 2003. More women than in previous years have been deported back to Albania from various EU countries, whereas only 2 foreign women have been caught in Albania while on transit to the EU. In 2002 and 2003 IOM helped with the re-integration of 141 Albanian victims of trafficking who had returned to Albania after being trafficked abroad. The NGO Vatra assisted 358 Albanian victims in 2002 and 234 in 2003. Approximately 24 percent of these victims were below 18 years of age.In the first half of 2006 the police in Albania reported 14 cases of trafficking of women for prostitution and 4 cases of trafficking of children (out of 209 identified human trafficking cases). This number dropped to 6 cases of women trafficking and 2 cases of trafficking of children (out of 197 identified human trafficking cases) for the first half of 2007. A 2006 UNHCR Anti-Trafficking Unit report also stated that the number of trafficking victims identified by the pre-screening process has sharply declined, suggesting that transit through Albania may have been replaced by other (probably mountain) routes, such as Montenegro, Bosnia and Croatia (Arsovska 2006, 2008).

On the other hand, many other sources argue that human trafficking is still one of the most profitable activities of the criminal groups in Albania. They claim that due to its favourable geographic position, Albaniacontinues to play a fundamental role in a very lucrative trafficking chain.When various sources are consulted, both official and unofficial,a few hypotheses commonly emerge in order to explain the current trends: 1) Under the pressure of the international community, law enforcement officials have identified the modus operandi of various criminal groups and have implemented tougher counter-measures which has resulted in a decrease of certain criminal activities; 2) Organised crime groups have responded to the law enforcement initiatives by modifying their operational methods and structures and have become less visible and more difficult to tackle; and, 3) Authorities in Albania (and western Balkans in general) are aware that human trafficking creates bad image for their countries, slows down the EU integration process, and causes cooperation problems with countries like the US; hence they have been inclined to deny the existence of major problems associated with human trafficking (see Arsovska 2008).

The recent developments in Albania point out that human trafficking/smuggling has not been de facto brought to zero as Albanian officials claim and that one should always be open to other scenarios in order to explain better the recent changes in official crime statistics regarding these types of criminal offences. As a result of the highly political and symbiotic nature of organised crime in this region official crime statistics are often misleading, and therefore, should be taken with great consideration.

K.U. Leuven

Institute of Criminal Law

[1] A more comprehensive and detailed analysis on the development of human trafficking and prostitution markets in the western Balkans and the links with politics can be found in: Arsovska, J. (2008) ‘Mapping the changing criminal landscape of the Balkan Triangle: human trafficking in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia’,to be published in the Oxford Journal Policing: Journal of Policy and Practice (forthcoming); Arsovska J. (2006) ‘Albanian crime laid bare: the development of Albanian organised crime groups in the Balkans’,Systematic Transnational Crime, Jane’s Intelligence Review, 19(2), 36-40.

[2]Initiatives undertaken after 2001 in relation to human trafficking [(THB as a Criminal Offence (2001); Joint Police/Prosecutor/International Operations (2002); Directorate of Fight against Organised Crime (2004); National Strategy for Combating THB – National Strategy for Combating Children Trafficking (2005-2007); Education Initiatives ; National Victim Referral Mechanism (agreement between the ASP, MoL, National Reception Centre, ‘Tjeter Vizion’, ‘Vatra’); Responsible Authority (MoI, MoL & MoFA) to monitor the referral process, assists, protect and reintegrate victims & potential victims; International Conventions & Bilateral Agreements (Co-operation Protocols with neighbouring countries - Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Greece to assist victims)] (Reported by Tabaku, A. (2007) The Role of Ethnic Albanian OC Rings in Trafficking & Smuggling of Human Beings, NATO Advanced Research Workshop 13-16 November, Sofia).