Child Exploitation in Albania: Revisiting the Concept of Human Security

Abstract

The main purpose of this thesis is to shed light on the issues of children exploitation as being one of the most vulnerable groups in Albania. The phenomenon first appeared in the 1990s after the collapse of the communist regime and the transition to a democratic system. The political, economic, social and cultural changes in the country have influenced extensively children as being subject to various forms of exploitation. Therefore, this thesis aims to examine and analyse the vulnerability of child exploitation in Albania; to provide a clarification on conceptual aspects of child exploitation based on international and national legal frameworks related to the issue; to identify some of the most prevalent forms of child exploitation in Albania. Another aim of this study is to explore factors that affect the phenomenon of child exploitation in the country. Additionally, the thesis will be examining the public policy dimension of child exploitation by pointing out the disparities that exist in the public institutions and legal framework. One last point of the study is to evaluate the gaps between the recorded and existing cases of child exploitation using the media, official national and international reports and other literature. To examine the child exploitation issues, this thesis further poses these research questions: How a lack of clarity of child-related concepts and legal definitions confront the child exploitation issue? Why is there a big gap between the actual child exploitation cases and reported ones? Why are there disparities in handling child exploitation issues in Albania? How does the economic inequalities particularly poverty cause the phenomenon? In order to achieve the abovementioned goals, and answer these research questions, this study has employed an elite survey questionnaire conducted with 452 individual elite respondents from central government, local government, NGOs, judiciary, academia and the media. Although the survey was the main instrument to find out and evaluate the child exploitation related issues and policies, this study has combined the quantitative and qualitative research approaches through data and statistics published by various stakeholders.

The study concludes that there is a need to reinforce the existing legal framework and the responsible public institutions should be improved, in cooperation with relevant national and international organizations and collaboration with the private sector and civil society as well as all other stakeholders in order to create appropriate policies and programs and implement efficiently. Within this context, to achieve a successful implementation of policies, this thesis also proposes a new stronger, and more comprehensive concept, inspired by ‘human security’, as ‘child security’ which is expected to serve to eliminate confusion created by the vast diversity of the concepts on child exploitation phenomenon and to help the policymakers to be clear in comprehending the problem and producing efficient policies.