Roma children from Albania are forced to beg on the streets of Kosovo, while neither the parents nor the authorities are ready to take responsibility for their right to safety, education or a secure future.
Author: Fatjona Mejdini
In the city of Ferizaj, everyone knows where "those from Albania" live.
They drive you to the outskirts of the city, in a neighborhood not far from the popular neighborhood Sallahane, which is mainly inhabited by the community Ashkali.
In the summer, the neighborhood becomes noisy with the arrival of new families from Tirana, Elbasan, Fieri and Durrës. Sometimes, the children of the newcomers fit in with the locals, playing happily in the alleys and forgetting for a while the hardships they face in this country.
From early morning until late at night, their parents force them to follow people on the streets and beg for money. Sometimes they order them to sit on the sidewalk without moving for hours, hoping that passers-by will take pity and throw in a coin.
NGOs in Albania fighting for the rights of the Roma community believe that their childhood and education are sacrificed so that families can have a roof over their heads and provide food.
Away from their homes and without permission for a long stay in Kosovo, the parents prioritize avoiding the police and deportation.
But according to authorities and NGOs, there are greater risks for children forced to beg. Diseases, accidents, robbery, beatings, sexual abuse and exploitation, trafficking by criminals and abduction for illegal adoption are just some of the dangers that Roma children face every day.
When a child does not have permanent housing, these risks increase even more.
In Albania, the Roma community is the poorest and most marginalized ethnic community, often on the brink of survival, and for years they have exploited their children and forced them to beg on the streets of Kosovo.
Danieli, a seven-year-old boy from Tirana, begs in a parking space in Prizren.
After the drivers park their cars, he follows them asking for money.
His grandmother, Maria, who begs on the streets of Prizren, is horrified by the idea that one day she might be run over by a car.
"Only my soul knows how difficult it is for me to ask Daniel to beg, but his mother is gone and only in this way can I feed him and his brother," she told Prishtina Insight.
During the first nine months of 2018, the Kosovo police have identified 140 citizens of Albania, who beg on the streets in the cities of Kosovo.
It is estimated that at least 85 of them are children.
According to the police, last year 127 Albanian citizens, adults and children, were identified as beggars on the streets of Kosovo. In 2016, the number was 172, in 2015 it was 162, and in 2014 it peaked at 455.
Altin Hazizaj, director of the Center for the Protection of Children's Rights in Albania, CRCA, told Prishtina Insight that there have been many reported cases of Roma Albanian children, beggars in Greece and Italy, who are victims of sexual abuse or exploitation for pornography. and prostitution, involved in pedophilia networks.
"We have not had such reports from Kosovo, but we should not be surprised if, years later, such stories would be reported to us or other institutions", he told Prishtina Insight.
The Kosovo Police echoes the concern.
Police officer Salih Dragidella said that city streets in Kosovo can become dangerous for children forced to beg.
"The risk is high, especially for girls. They are seriously endangered by the threat of trafficking", he warned.
According to the figures of the Kosovo police, during the years 2016 and 2017, 23 cases of exploitation of children for prostitution, 5 cases of forced labor and Services, and 3 cases of keeping them in slavery were identified.
The courts of the main cities of Kosovo such as Pristina, Prizren, Ferizaj and Gjilan had a hard time showing that they have dealt with cases where the victims were Albanian children.
The only case given by the Ferizaj court was that of July 2016, where the abuser of a 13-year-old child was an Albanian woman with the initials EA
"The child was forced to do hard work, more precisely to beg every day from morning until late at night, exploited by this woman who was not his mother, who kept the money collected during the activity for herself", - it is said in the court decision.
The court decided not to proceed with the sentence against the woman, but deported her to Albania and banned her from entering Kosovo for two years.
Such deportations are the way in which for many years the Kosovo police and the judicial system have faced the situation with the Roma Albanians.
During the first six months of 2018, they deported 56 people, children and adults, towards the Albanian border.
The tension created for the "uninvited" citizens of Albania is evident in Kosovo, while their neighbors in Ferizaj in particular are unhappy.
"They don't worry about the common space. This neighborhood has become dirtier than before since they came here," said a person who wished to remain anonymous.
In Prizren, where beggars from Albania ask for money in bars along the banks of the Lumbardhi River, people are angry.
"They have made our lives difficult. Every day approximately 30-40 women or children come to my bar and ask for money. Do not leave, if the customer refuses to give. I have to intervene myself and give them 50 cents for them to leave", said Valmir Kryeziu, owner of a bar in Prizren.
Smugglers find their way
Across the border, Albania shows no interest in taking back the children and their parents.
A Kosovo police officer - who wished to remain anonymous - said that in 2015 they had a problem at the border with Albanian police refusing to register a bus of people who were turning back.
"Their problem was that they were receiving many repatriations from European countries and by receiving beggars from Kosovo they would increase the total number and this would not look good", he said.
But it is at this point that the smugglers come into play.
Parents of children begging on the streets of Kosovo say they have paid 200 to 300 euros to smugglers to help them enter Kosovo through paths that avoid crossing the border.
"This road is not dangerous or tiring, the only problem is the payment to avoid being caught by the police as much as possible", said Kela, a 17-year-old girl from Durrës who begs on the streets of Ferizaj together with her sister. her little one.
Away from the cameras, Kosovo police describe how smugglers from Albania help beggars return to Kosovo very easily.
"In 2016, we deported dozens of them through the border checkpoint.
It is possible that they will be able to return again through the help of smugglers faster than us on the city streets", said a police officer.
The Albanian police in Kukës are aware of Albanians from the Roma community crossing illegally into Kosovo, but denied that they have received help from others in exchange for money, although others have confirmed such a thing.
The Director of Border and Migration for the Albanian police in the Kukës district, Ferdinand Gjeta, said that they have never caught any smugglers transporting Roma illegally across the border.
"There are cases when Roma are caught crossing the border illegally. They were stopped, interviewed and sent back. They don't need a guide, because now they know the area well," he said.
Marenglen Hadaj, police commander at the Morina border crossing point, said that the Kosovo police share responsibility for illegal crossings.
"They cross illegally into Kosovo, so in this case it is their police's problem, not ours," he said.
The lack of political will from Albania and Kosovo on this issue is considered one of the biggest obstacles to solving this problem, according to Alketa Lask, permanent representative of the foundation Terre des Hommes in Albania and Kosovo.
"In Kosovo, the perception is that this is Albania's problem, while the authorities in Albania believe that the Services for those people should be provided in Kosovo", she said.
The foundation has been working on the issue of children exploited for begging abroad since 2009.
Child trafficking: a problem for Albania
The Albanian authorities have been slow in addressing the danger faced by children in Kosovo, as representatives of NGOs for children's rights say.
A group of representatives from the State Agency for Children's Rights and Protection, the National Anti-Trafficking Coordinator and non-governmental organizations, with assistance from municipal child protection units, have gradually begun work to assist the first cases of repatriation.
According to the Albanian Agency for Children, they dealt with four cases of trafficked children in 2018, referred by the national anti-trafficking coordinator and identified by the Kosovar authorities.
"Of the cases referred to us by the coordinator, three are from Fieri and one from Shkodra. Further, we have referred them to the municipal units for the protection of children to identify and assess the situation in which their families find themselves", - said the agency.
In 2017, there were three cases of assisted repatriation of children.
On the other hand, Rovena Voda, national anti-trafficking coordinator and deputy minister of the interior, said that the issue of Albanian children begging in Kosovo is a sensitive issue, considering that they are mainly exploited by their parents.
"This phenomenon cannot end or simply be handled by the police. It needs a social approach, as well as many actors and other factors", she said.
The weak work of the institutions in stopping the trafficking of children was also reflected in the US Department of State report on "Trafficking in Human Beings" in June 2018.
"Efforts to identify forced begging remain insufficient, especially for unaccompanied children, street children, and those who cross the border to beg," says the report.
Europol's report on the situation of criminal networks, involved in trafficking and exploitation of minor victims in the European Union, issued in October 2018, was again a severe blow to the institutions.
"Europol has received information about several criminal groups composed of Albanian-speaking suspects who traffic minors, boys and girls, in the EU for sexual exploitation, forced labor and illegal adoption," says the report.
Altin Hazizaj, from the Center for the Protection of Children's Rights in Albania, said that until today the institutions do not know how many Albanian children left for Kosovo, how many returned or what happened to those who did not return.
Albania: a difficult terrain for parents
Kosovo is a favorite place for Roma families to beg for several reasons.
It is very close, the same language is spoken and the euro currency is more valuable than the Albanian lek. These are just some of the many reasons they cross the border.
Kosovo may be a foreign country, but that actually makes the stigma of street begging even easier to bear.
"In my hometown, in Fier, I would never have the courage to beg on the streets of the city, I would be very ashamed. It's simple here," said Kimetja, a 27-year-old woman, who holds a baby in her arms, while begging on the streets of Pristina.
The generosity of the people in Kosovo is one more reason for families to beg there.
Shpresa, a 25-year-old woman from Tirana, has spent three summers begging in Ferizaj together with her three children aged 7, 4 and 2.
All three beg separately in order to earn as much money as they can for the family.
"In Tirana, people don't give us money and are very aggressive.
They insult us, even push us. Here, people very rarely behave in that way," she said.
Another factor contributing to begging in Kosovo is that legislation and institutions in Albania have hardened the attitude towards parents who force their children to beg on the streets.
The cases were sent to the court under the article "Mistreatment of minors" of the Penal Code, which provides for two to five years in prison for cases where the child is forced to beg.
In a court case on May 4, 2017, based on this article, a father of six was sentenced to one year and four months in prison after his two children were found to be begging on the street. In the court decision, the judge argued that his sentence was mitigated by the fact that the father was part of the Roma community with no other means of survival.
However, in June 2017 a new child protection law came into force, which gives municipal employees room to take parents who force their children to beg to the police and prosecutors.
The Tirana Municipality's Child Protection Unit confirmed that it has so far taken 12 parents to the police and that the police has referred 11 of them to the prosecutor's office.
While vigilance for children forced to beg has increased in Albania, very little effort is made for those who cross the border, whose fate rests in the hands of passers-by.
Begging during the summer months in Ferizaj provides enough money for Shpresa's family to survive for the whole year in Elbasan.
However, the fact that her children lose their childhood and the right to education, while begging on the streets of Kosovo, is something that torments Shpresa every day.
"In Albania, no one has asked me if I need help to raise my children and I don't know any other way to do it, but I still dream that one day they will be able to attend school," she said.
*Main photo at the beginning of the article: A child sleeping near a bridge in Prizren. Photo: Antonio Çakshiri
- This article was originally published in Prishtina Insight
