23 minutes agoReport UN: Kosovo government does not fully meet minimum standards for elimination of trafficking
Periskopi(3 years ago)
(3 years ago)The US State Department released a report Thursday on the trafficking of human beings for 2022, which includes estimates of about 190 countries in the world. The report divides countries to three levels. The first level includes countries and territories whose governments fully respect the minimum standards required. Second level enters [...]
The US State Department released a report Thursday on the trafficking of human beings for 2022, which includes estimates of about 190 countries in the world.
The report divides countries to three levels. The first level includes countries and territories whose governments fully respect the minimum standards required. At the second level, countries and territories -- whose governments do not fully comply with minimum standards -- but are making considerable efforts to achieve such a thing and the third level include countries that do not fully comply with minimum standards and are not trying to do so.
Albania and Kosovo continue to rank second level.
Kosovo
According to the report, the Kosovo government did not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, but is making considerable efforts to do so.
The government demonstrated an increase of overall efforts compared to a year earlier, taking into account the possible impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its anti-trafficking capacities. For that reason Kosovo continued to remain at Level 2.
Among the efforts were prosecution and more defendants and the conviction of a larger number of traffickers.
The government established guidelines for health workers to identify potential victims and translated pamphlets into Ukrainian and Russian languages that inform victims of their rights and available services.
Co-ordinating anti-trafficking bodies met continually, and the government drafted and approved the National Anti-traffic Strategy for the period 2022-2026.
“However, the government did not meet minimum standards in some key areas. Judges continued to issue mild penalties for most convicted traffickers, who were under minimum sentence envisioned by the trafficking law. The penal code classifies the obligation of children by parents to beg on the street as neglect or parental abuse and not as trafficking and, due to inadequate procedures to identify cases of forced begging, authorities would have improperly expelled some unidentified victims of trafficking without referring to them in the appropriate service”, the report said.
But according to the report, the government reduced funds for shelters run by NGOs and phone operators lacked the effort to understand and respond to trafficking-related calls, especially for possible cases of forced child extraction to beg.
Albania
According to the 2023 report, Albania's government did not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, but is making considerable efforts to do so.
The government demonstrated an increase of overall efforts compared to a year earlier, taking into account the possible impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its anti-trafficking capacities. For this reason Albania continued to remain at Level 2.
Among the efforts was the investigation of more suspected traffickers and the adoption of new procedures to identify trafficking victims in irregular migration flows.
The State Department cites the creation of four centres providing psycho-social support, legal assistance and family assistance, as well as signing co-operation agreements with institutions of higher education to expand legal assistance to victims.
“However, the government did not meet minimum standards in some key areas. The government did not condemn any traffickers and identified fewer victims. The government continued to unconsistently implement control procedures for vulnerable populations, especially migrants, asylum seekers, Roma and Balkan and Balkan and children alike, and mobile victims' identification units continued to have insufficient funding and personnel”, the report said.
The government also lacked resources for efforts to reintegration victims, anti-trafficking co-ordination bodies did not hold meetings, and telephone lines made available by the government continued to function.
