Abused by gangsters, disowned by their families, and let down by the
state, Albanian women who were trafficked as sex slaves face an uphill
battle to build new lives.
The area around the Place de I’Yser in Brussels is the Albanian sex
workers' patch. Their territory is just a couple of kilometres from the
city's central square, the Grand Place, where thousands of tourists
flock every day, and from the EU institutions.
The US accuses Albanian authorities of failing to tackle sex-trafficking (Photo: asp.gov.al)
After a coffee at a corner cafe around midday, the women wait for
clients on the streets. Ten minutes of sex costs no more than €50.
Voluptuous, with long curly hair and big black eyes, 31-year old Eva
speaks without embarrassment about the clients she goes with, how much
she charges, sexual positions and even the fights among the women who
share the street.
"I first came here with my fiance 14 years ago," recalls Eva (a
pseudonym, like the names of all current or former sex workers in this
story). The man she had fallen for told her she needed to make a
"sacrifice for the sake of our love" - to have sex with other men to
earn some money for them as a couple.
Without realising, at first, what was happening, Eva had become a
victim of sex trafficking - or, as it is more formally known,
trafficking in women for sexual exploitation.
There may be as many as 140,000 sex-trafficking victims in Europe and around a third come from the Balkans, according to a UN report from 2010.
Thousands of women and girls have been trafficked from Albania alone
to western Europe as sex slaves in the last two decades. Well-organised
criminal gangs control the trafficking, sometimes with the complicity of
the victims' own family members, and launder profits by buying property
back in Albania, police and experts say.
Efforts to crack down on the gangs face serious obstacles. Complex
international investigations are required and it is widely accepted that
criminals can buy influence in the justice system of Albania, one of
Europe's poorest countries.
"Corruption and high rates of turnover within the police force
inhibit law enforcement action to address trafficking. Official
complicity in trafficking crimes remains a significant concern," says
the section on Albania in the US State Department's 2015 Trafficking in Persons Report.
It also notes that when the report was published, in July, “a sitting
member of [the Albanian] parliament had prior convictions for
trafficking-related crimes”.
Meanwhile, many victims who escape from the gangs end up back in the
sex trade after being shunned by their own families and communities and
after receiving only modest help from the Albanian state to build a new
life.
Abused by their families
A previously unpublished Albanian police report from 2007, obtained
by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, says at least 5,162
women and girls were trafficked to be exploited as sex workers between
1992 and 2005.
Some 22% were minors when they were trafficked, 7% of all victims
were kidnapped, raped, or had their families threatened, 4% were sold
into forced prostitution by their own families.
Since the period covered by the report, around 1,000 more trafficking
victims have been identified, according to annual crime reports issued
by the Albanian state prosecutor.
Sobering as they are, the statistics tell only a small fraction of a
bigger story. The true number of victims is likely to be much higher, as
the official figures only include women known to authorities.
The numbers, in any case, hardly convey what each individual woman has suffered.
Interviews with trafficked women reveal that, in some cases, they
were subjected to violence and sexual abuse by members of their own
families.
"One night my dad drank a lot and sometime after two o’clock I found
myself naked and he was over me," recalls Vera, a 27-year old woman at
the Different & Equal charity centre in Tirana, which offers help to
trafficking victims.
"I felt totally numb … and left home with the first man who promised
to marry me and who, the moment we arrived on the outskirts of Tirana,
forced me to have sex with other men for money," she says.
She adds, between sobs, that her father raped her so often that she does not remember how many times he did it.
Vera’s mother took her own life in 2009. Police believe she committed
suicide after discovering her husband was sexually abusing their
daughter.
Maria, from the Malesia e Madhe region in northern Albania, was only
16 when her father married her to an older man. Her new husband forced
her into prostitution in Greece.
"Every night, it was like I was being raped," she recalls in another
centre for trafficking victims, in the city of Elbasan. "When I told my
mum, she would scream that I couldn't go back home, telling me that I
had walked out of that door for good."
Elsa, from the northern town of Kukes, became a target of her father’s rage after her mother died when she was six.
"When he would return home, he would beat me with a water hose just
because I existed," she says in a low voice, as if still gripped by
fear.
After being raped by her brother at the age of 13, she ran away and
was forced to work as a prostitute, first in Tirana and later in Kosovo.
"No one understands the pain of passing through the hands of many
people, of going through these things in your family, of losing your
innocence without knowing why," she says at a centre for trafficking
victims in the town of Vlora.
"No one taught me what love is, what right and wrong are. I've been
stigmatised since I was a child and as far as everyone's concerned I'll
always be a whore."
Low conviction rates
In their 2007 report, Albanian police identified more than 2,000
people suspected of trafficking over the past decade and a half. But
only 23% of them were in prison, in Albania, or abroad, for trafficking
or other crimes.
Tougher sentences for human trafficking of between 10 and 15 years in
jail were introduced in Albania in 2013 but the number of convictions
has been small. Albania convicted nine people of trafficking in 2014 and
three people the previous year, according to the US State Department.
Some convicted traffickers manage to avoid jail by pursuing appeals.
Hysni Sokolaj, a 43-year old man from the town of Tropoje, was found
guilty in absentia in 2011 of human trafficking and prostitution. He was
sentenced to 20 years in prison. His conviction was upheld by a higher
court, but later overturned by the Supreme Court.
Sokolaj was accused of deceiving an 18-year old woman with false
promises of love and marriage, and then of trafficking her and forcing
her into prostitution in Belgium and in the UK, according to a copy of
his case file obtained by BIRN.
In 2006, after he was deported from Britain as an illegal alien, the
woman returned to Albania, found refuge at the centre for trafficking
victims in Vlora and filed charges against him.
"When she came she was traumatised, fearing her pimp, who had
threatened to kill her brothers," recalls Enkelejda Abdylaj, a
coordinator at the centre.
"She was ashamed to say what had happened to her and felt guilty for running away from home with him [Sokolaj].”
The case against Sokolaj was first registered in the prosecutor’s
office in Fier, which refused to start criminal proceedings against him,
saying it could not collect any evidence. Following protests from
victims' support groups, the case was transferred to the Serious Crimes
Prosecutor’s Office in Tirana.
The office brought charges against Sokolaj, who was believed to have
returned to Britain, and an international warrant was issued for his
arrest. In 2012, British police declared Sokolaj one of the most wanted
foreign nationals in the country.
But in December the same year, the Supreme Court overturned his
conviction, saying the lower courts had deliberately misinterpreted the
law.
Sokolaj’s lawyer, Ferit Muca, says his client, who does not live in Albania any more, has always maintained he is not guilty.
"The Supreme Court delivered justice because my client was innocent," he says.
"He lived with the accuser and didn’t traffic her. The charges
against him were filed on the basis of manipulations by prosecutors. The
girl was unstable."
Family business
One recent case investigated by serious crimes prosecutors in Tirana
involves two brothers, Bledar and Shyqeri Stafuga, aged 33 and 24,
respectively.
Two courts found them guilty of being part of a criminal gang which
trafficked at least six young women into sexual slavery. The Supreme
Court is considering an appeal against their conviction.
One woman testified that she was only 16 years old when Shyqeri
Stafuga trafficked her to Switzerland and Germany and forced her to have
sex with 10 men every day.
"He put a knife to my throat; he would stub out his cigarette on my
body ... He would threaten to kill my family if I didn't make 1,000
[Swiss] francs every night," she said.
In November 2014, Bledar and Shyqeri Stafuga were convicted of human
trafficking and trafficking of minors by the Court of Serious Crimes in
Tirana and sentenced to 12 and a half and 12 years in prison,
respectively.
Anila Trimi, an anti-trafficking expert with the Albanian state
police, tells BIRN the brothers were part of a larger, well-structured
criminal organisation and investigations continue into other possible
members of the group.
Dolores Musabelliu, a prosecutor in the Serious Crimes Prosecutor’s
Office, says human trafficking and prostitution cases are difficult to
prove in court.
"The reasons behind the failure of many cases is that prosecutors
base their charges only on the testimony of the victim," she says.
However, victims often decide not to testify or withdraw testimony
because they cannot face a drawn-out court case and fear vengeance from
the traffickers.
"So I denounced him and what did I gain?,” asks Lola, a 21-year old
woman from a small village north of Tirana, who filed criminal charges
against her pimp in late 2014 and who lives in Albania's only state-run
shelter for trafficking victims.
"He knows where I live, knows everything about me and is still free," she says.
Asset unfreeze
The Albanian government's national anti-trafficking strategy,
approved in November 2014, named Belgium as one of the main destinations
in Western Europe for Albanian women trafficked for prostitution.
In Brussels, Didier Dochain, the deputy head of the federal police's
anti-trafficking unit, told BIRN the Belgian authorities are focusing
increasingly on trying to seize the assets of foreign traffickers.
"This is the motivation, of course, of all these criminal activities -
it's to gain illegal profit and so if we can cut, seize, confiscate ...
this profit, then it's a good thing," Dochain said.
But, he added, traffickers generally send their profits back to their
home countries so Belgian police needed cooperation from authorities
there.
"They invest in land, houses, expensive cars and things like that and
they live a good life back in their own country," he says. "They can
live as barons or princes because they make a big profit and big money
but the problem is first of all to trace this illegal money flow."
Unfortunately, Dochain says, the response from foreign authorities in
many cases is that they cannot find the money. Often this is because
financial transactions were not recorded as thoroughly as they are in
Belgium, he explains, but he cannot rule out that corruption also plays a
role.
Back in Tirana, Dolores Musabelliu at the prosecutor’s office says
Albanian authorities face their own problems getting information from
foreign countries for complex investigations.
"Investigating these cases depends on legal assistance requests, to
which the responses are often late, and this is often the reason cases
are dismissed," she says.
While some officials and MPs work to counter sex trafficking, two
Albanian politicians have been accused of active involvement in it.
Belgian prosecutors have accused Mark Frroku, a lawmaker from the
Christian Democratic Party, of murdering another Albanian in Brussels in
1999. The victim was allegedly blackmailing a woman who was exploited
by a prostitution ring run by a brother of Frroku.
An Albanian court is considering a Belgian request for Frroku's
extradition. Frroku has denied any wrongdoing and described the charges
against him as politically motivated.
Arben Ndoka, who served as a member of parliament from the ruling
Socialist Party, has admitted he was convicted by an Italian court in
the 1990s for running prostitutes and kidnapping.
Ndoka made the admission last year after his criminal record was
exposed by the opposition. But he maintained that he was innocent of the
charges and stayed on in parliament, before eventually resigning in
September 2015.
Shunned by society
Even though they are victims, many women who have been trafficked and
forced into prostitution are disowned by their own families and
stigmatised by society.
The mother of the woman who was allegedly being blackmailed in the
Frroku case lives in the small town of Puka in mountainous northern
Albania.
Her home is a ground floor flat in an old apartment block. She is 63
years old, but looks much older, with dark rings around her eyes. For
her, any connection with the sex trade is a source of shame. As far as
she is concerned, she no longer has a daughter.
"I don’t know what happened to her," she says, standing on her doorstep. "All I know is what I've heard in the news."
Over the past 25 years, 83 young women and girls from Puka have been
trafficked into prostitution, according to local police. Their stories
are still the talk of a town of just 3,600 inhabitants. Zajmira Laci, a doctor and women’s rights activist in Puka
Zajmira Laci, a local doctor and women’s rights activist, says that,
just like the woman in the Frroku case, many trafficking victims have
never returned to Puka.
"Because of the shame, their families don’t accept them," Laci says.
"Girls also haven't returned because they fear everyone will be pointing
fingers at them."
Road to rehabilitation
Many Western countries now have well-resourced programmes to help victims of trafficking make a fresh start.
In the Belgian city of Antwerp, Patsy Sorensen, the director of
Payoke, a charity that helps trafficking victims, can point to dozens of
examples of women reintegrating into Belgian society.
The women can request a work permit and can attend education and
training courses free of charge, Sorensen explains. They also receive a
basic income of around €800/month even if they are not working.
"They have a lot of possibilities to rebuild their lives and most of them like to work as quickly as possible," Sorensen says.
Women she knows have found work as cleaners and shop assistants.
Others have started nail studios, Sorensen says. Others yet, including
some Albanian women, have gone to university.
However, Sorensen admits, there are cases where women have ended up being trafficked again. Patsy Sorensen, director of the Payoke anti-trafficking organisation in Antwerp
In Albania, after women are identified as trafficking victims, they
are generally referred to the state-run shelter or one of three
rehabilitation centres.
The shelter in the village of Linze, near Tirana, houses victims
awaiting the results of preliminary investigations. The centres in
Tirana, Elbasan and Vlora are run by non-profit organisations and offer
courses in skills such as cookery and hairdressing with the aim of
helping women find employment.
The US State Department's 2015 human trafficking report says
psychological, medical, and reintegration services at the shelter are
inadequate and the government has not given enough money - even though
it could have used a special crime prevention fund which held at least
25 million lek (about €180,000).
But even after going through rehabilitation programmes, trafficking victims struggle to find work.
"We've had only one case of employment in a state institution and
this was due to our mediation," says Enkelejda Avdylaj, the coordinator
at the Vatra centre in Vlora.
"We talk to businesses, but when we tell them the profile of the employee they refuse to hire them."
If trafficking victims are able to find a job, even a poorly paid
one, they still suffer the stigma attached to their former lives.
Diana Kaso, executive director of the Another Vision centre in
Elbasan, says that 80% of the women who go through its rehabilitation
programmes aim to rebuild their lives away from their home towns.
Maria, the woman who was forced into prostitution in Greece, is following that path.
She lives in a city far from her birthplace with her 12-year-old son, whom she says is the only source of joy in her life.
After a rehabilitation programme, she worked for years as a cleaning
lady in bars and is now a pastry chef on a monthly salary of about €110,
half of which goes on rent.
"Many people have tried to exploit my misfortune rather than help,"
she says. When she goes to a government office to claim a small payment
for trafficking victims, officials ask for sex, Maria says. "It’s scary
to enter an office.”
Kaso says that few women have the strength Maria has shown to build a new life.
Of all the cases she has handled, about 100 women have ended up back in prostitution.
"Sometimes they don’t have the necessary support or they think that
because of the stigma they have no other options," Kaso explains.
At the Place de l'Yser in Brussels, Eva is one of those women who
reached that conclusion. She first lived in Belgium for five years with
her fiance-cum-pimp, until he disappeared with all their money.
Eva returned to Albania for a while but decided to go back to Belgium
and work again in the sex trade. This allows her to send money back to
her family, who think she is a care worker for an elderly couple.
"In Albania, there was no job for me," Eva says. "The only job that I
know how to do is this one. And here I can earn much more." This article was produced as part of the Balkan Fellowship for
Journalistic Excellence, supported by the ERSTE Foundation and Open
Society Foundations, in cooperation with the Balkan Investigative
Reporting Network
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