Economic situation favours traffickers to exploit women and children for trafficking

The various criminal groups are very active in exploiting certain categories -- primarily women and minors -- for trafficking with human beings. Traffickers, their victims are used mainly for profit or for the purpose of sexual exploitation, respectively.

The US State Department report reported that during 2017, Kosovo institutions have identified 32 victims of trafficking, 25 women and 3 males, respectively.

Of them, 18 victims have been subject to trafficking for sexual exploitation, seven have carried out mandatory work, three of them have requested charity, while four others have been named “fully submissive to”.

The largest number of sexual victims consists of girls coming from Kosovo, Albania, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and the Philippines.

Kosovo institutions say they have undertaken numerous actions to prevent trafficking with human beings.

The chief of the central human trafficking investigation sector, Riza Murati, tells Radio Free Europe that Kosovo Police have taken over 140 shares over the past year in the fight against human trafficking. According to him, the largest number of trafficking victims have been subject to sexual trafficking.

We now have more victims than those from other countries. Of the 32 victims as many as they were last year, we have identified that somewhere seven of them were from other countries, five from Albania, one from Moldova and one from the Philippines, namely identified as victims of trafficking exploited in Kosovo”, Murati said.

One of the countries where it resulted in the finding of victims who were subject to trafficking for sexual exploitation has been various massage centres.

“This year we have conducted a control operation through massage or local halls, and it has resulted in 68 sosh, as controlled, 40 of them being shut down”, Murati said.

The economic situation in Kosovo is very favourable for traffickers, says Behxhet Shala of the Council for Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms.

Shala tells Radio Free Europe that fighting trafficking is difficult, as institutions do not have the necessary professional capacities.

<x) Institutions not why they don't do anything, but it's impossible with this professional capacity they have and your possibilities cover all the cases. Report is objective. The number is not real because there are many more trafficking cases, but there is no more capacity to do more”, Shala said.

He also said that other mechanisms of combating human trafficking do not directly deal with preventing this phenomenon, but only with the consequences.

Shala says that for combating human trafficking has failed any strategy, both by local and international institutions.

Even the internationals who have had some kind of responsibility in this area have not shown any success in combating trafficking and cannot be addressed solely to the country's institutions, but the guilt must be directed to all, including civil society and responsible institutions, but also international 48x1>, Shala said.

Another disturbing phenomenon, the fact is that the subject of human trafficking is also the children who mainly in Kosovo come from Albania.