The Guardian: History of Albanian girls who prostitute Western

On a sunny day in September 2014, a woman's body was found on the Lunal Canal - a stream that runs through palaces in Montpellier. French police at first had doubts that she was drowning. There were no signs of injuries, but the fact that he was naked added doubts about the event.

The body was of Silvana Beqiright, an Albanian. Silvana came from the village of Intermena, of Fier, an industrial city, about 100km from Tirana. The divorced mother had left her children with her parents and had migrated to France.
Another woman, Beauty Elmazi, had also been with Sophia in France in 2011, and had convinced her to emigrate for a better life, according to Silvana's family.

It had been Elmazi who identified the body. She told us that she cared for an elderly woman” says Sophia's father to The Guardian, Mehmet Beqiray, who lives in a small house in the village. But we all had doubts”.

In France the investigation started. Sophia was found to be involved in Montpelje prostitution, but her family has no idea what happened to her. The cause of death was never determined by police or doctors, and no one was arrested.

Sophia's family refuses to admit that their daughter was trafficked, preferring to believe that her involvement in prostitution was her choice. If you have a pimp, or a smuggler on your head you don't bring a lot of money home” says her brother (who refused to be identified), a man who still suffers loss of his sister. “She sent a lot of money. If he was trafficked, he wouldn't let him send us back to”.

The evidence, however, says otherwise.

His brother says that people who “sent Sophia to France” still live in the village, while Mehmet says Sophia sent small amounts of money when she could. Of course, there was no more comfort at home after she left.

A few days after being notified of his daughter's death, Mehmet traveled to Montpellier, where he met with the police.
“Albanians (in consulate) help with only one translator and nothing else. They treated me badly, were arrogant, and ignored me” he says.

Sophia's body was held by the prosecution for seven months. When it was finished with investigations, the family had to pay about 6 thousand euros to return to Albania. We didn't have before” says Mehmeti. “But we found them like that...”

Life in the village had not been easy for Sophia. Like many other women, she married at 20 years of age, a arranged marriage. After five years, he sought a divorce and returned to his parents ' home with his children.

Within the year, Silvana met Nuri Cela, a man from nearby village. Before long, both of them began to live together, but Chelsea was shot dead as they returned home together.
“It was about a debt” says Silvana's mother, Yllka, “They owed Sophia 3,500 euros, and Chelsea was killed just because she wanted the money”.
According to one journalist, Laureta Rooshi, Silvana had given the money to a criminal group that would take her to France for prostitution. But then he changed his mind and asked for the money back.

It is virtually impossible to find the real reasons why Sophia asked to go to France. But what is known by girls trafficked from Albanian villages is that they are promised a better life and that they end up in debt for paying the trip and staying in France. Their families in Albania are threatened with silence. Sophia's children knew that their mother was trafficked to France”

Women's trafficking gangs are brutal

In the late 1990s, the Albanian government began to admit that trafficking of girls for prostitution had become a serious problem. Experts began work on identifying the victims and punishing the pimps.
Despite these efforts and millions of dollars for strengthening anti-trafficking laws, there remains a disturbing phenomenon in the Balkans in general and Albania, in particular.
The National Crime Agency in Great Britain shows that late 2017, most girls trafficked to this country are from Albania.

The journey from Vlora to Brindisi is about an hour and a half with gomone, so Vlora is known as the main crossing point in Italy. Today, Fier is best known for the phenomenon of trafficked women, but Vlora has her problems.
“I think the trafficking is dropping” says Balida, a police girl from the anti-trafficking centre in Vlora. “There are no more gangs, only men offered to marry women. They're going to Italy themselves, or wherever they want to be”.

Balida says penalties for traffickers are rare because victims “reject co-operation”. When we question a prostitute, she says: I do it as a profession. This is my profession. So if she doesn't think she's a victim, why should we?

I think more than clients, we have to criminalize girls. Because the girls I've met do this job because they like it. They're not under pressure, at least what I've known.”
Asked how many traffickers have arrested or questioned her and her team, Balida responds without any hesitation: no “any”.

We have groups involved in traffic, but we have no evidence to arrest them. We just keep an eye on them, but we don't have any evidence that they're dealing with traffic”. Did she know about Beqiw? “Yes, but no one comes out to say” she says. Maybe she made a lot of enemies, and everybody's afraid of them”.
In Albania, reports against traffic victims are as violent as common. Traffic and police organisations tell punctuated stories of torture against women and girls trying to escape.
A 20-year-old girl who escaped from traffickers after finding out she was pregnant with one of the people who bought her was found at a construction site. In front of other women who had been brought in to see, the girl was badly beaten before she was sworn to the wall, still alive, writes The Guardian.
Other women are forced to stay with traffickers because they know where their families live and are told that they will be killed if the girls leave.

Some of the girls in Vlora have had the chance to take refuge in the Vatra centre for traffic victims. In a comfortable center environment, about 20 people on staff and girls sit down while children play peacefully.

One of the girls, Sarah, relates that I was trafficked by a boy in her neighborhood when she was only 13. That man I knew was my boyfriend, but he sold me to three people from Tirana and they took me to Italy” says Sara, who lives with her child in the center. I was raped, beaten, humiliated, even controlled as if I were an animal to see what I was worth” Sarah escaped when she was told that she would move to another house in a town near Turin.

I went to the police, and thank God, she said, "x1." “sent me to get help (in the offices of the World Migration Organization) and helped me get a home. But Vlora police didn't believe me. They said I was lying about being a prostitute in Italy and that this was my choice. They said I'd be arrested if I went to bother them again”.
Four years after Silvana's body was found, police have made no discovery on the occasion. It's a bad memory of how dangerous prostitution is for women of Albania” says a Europol policeman, currently serving in Albania.
The “Bands that trafficking women to this end are among the most brutal we've ever encountered. Even the Russians are afraid of” he says about The Guardian.

Journalists in Tirana and Fier say there was no news from France for Silvana Beqiran. Montpelje police confirm there is no information to provide.

Sophia's tomb is on a dry strip near her family lands in Fier. Other family members are buried there, Yllka says. She starts crying and wants help to find out what happened to her daughter. The police won't know” says crying, “because they think all girls are prostitutes. But someone has a fault...
On the grave is a plaque that rises on the hard ground with a picture of Sophia. We can't even buy a tomb for him, says Mehmet, as he touches his daughter's picture.

On the tablet is Sophia's name and birth date. There is a date for her death, as if the family refused what happened until they had an answer to how their daughter died. Taken by The Guardian/ He adapted to Albanian post.al