QENDRA PER MBROJTJEN E TE DREJTAVE

TE FEMIJEVE NE SHQIPERI

Children’s Human Rights Centre of Albania - CRCA

CHILD ABUSE IN THE

ALBANIAN FAMILY

Prepared by:

Asoc. Prof. Dr. Edlira Haxhiymeri Eliona Kulluri

Altin Hazizaj

Edited by:

AURELA PANO

AUGUST 2005

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Children’s Human Rights Centre of Albania – CRCA, would like to extend its thanks for the preparation of this research-report to the following:

- Ms.Edlira Haxhiymeri, Ms. Eliona Kulluri and Mr. Altin Hazizaj for the collection and analysis of data, documents and interviews, and for the preparation of this report.

- Ms. Aurela Pano, for the continuous review and editing of this Report. - Olof Palme International Center, for the financial support of the Programme ‘The

Rights of the Child a Democratic Right’ of the Information and Research Centre for Children’s Rights in Albania - IRCCRA, and its support for the preparation and publication of this research.

- All children, who spoke to us openly about their life, concerns and problems.

- The Shelter for Battered Women and Young Girls for putting in our disposition information and data that have been included in this research.

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CONTENTS Page

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4 2. INTRODUCTION 5

- Child abuse in the family 5 - Methodology of the research 5

3. THE CONCEPT OF CHILD ABUSE 7

- Definition of child abuse 7 - Main forms of child abuse 7 - Physical abuse 7 - Baby Shaken Syndrome 8 - Emotional Abuse 8 - Sexual Abuse 9 - Child neglect 10

4. CHILD ABUSE AND ALBANIAN LEGISLATION 11

- Definition of child abuse and neglect 11 - Albanian Legislation and child abuse 11 - Family Code and the concept of ‘parental responsibility’ 11 - Governmental Policies and child abuse 13

5. PROTECTION OF CHILDREN FROM ABUSE AND NEGLECT 14

- Responsible institutions and child protection scheme 14 6. SOCIAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS CHILD ABUSE 16

- Scale of acceptance by the society of child abuse in the family 16 - Parents and their expectations by the child 17 - Scale of acceptance of abuse by the child 17 - Experts views on the phenomena of child abuse in Albania 17

7. SCALE OF CHILD ABUSE IN ALBANIA 19

- Scale of the phenomena 19 - Profile of an abusing family 19

8. PROFILE OF THE CHILD AND CONSEQUENCES OF ABUSE 22

- The profile of abused children 22 - Consequences of abuse to children 22

9. CASE STUDIES 25 10. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 29

- Conclusions 29 - Recommendations 30

11. LITERATURE AND CONTACTS 32

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Child abuse in Albania is not a phenomenon experienced only recently. This is a wound, which has remained dormant for long in the Albanian family and society. For many years nobody has dared to “wake up the bear” sleeping inside us. The research on child abuse in the Albanian family, which we are presenting to you, is a result of a long research and practice work to identify the problem, detect the causes facing this way the reality in order to help the victims of abuse, abusing parents and all those institutions, organizations and individuals that are interested to prevent or cure the dolorous phenomenon of child abuse. This research is based on the contemprory literature on this phenomenon, researches of individuals and groups working in this issue in Albania, but more specifically, the research is based on the cases of abused children treated in the Shelter of Battered Women and Girls in Albania.

The research provides a definition of the child abuse in general: “every behaviour or attitude that injures or risks the emotional, physical well-being of the child as well as causes the interruption of the normal process of development”. Child abuse is manifested in various forms, such as: physical and emotional abuse, neglecting and sexual abuse. Each of these forms is illustrated with cases of people that have lived and have been treated in the Shelter. Part of this research is occupied by the attitudes of the society towards the abuse concentrating on the degree of acceptance of this phenomenon, the attitude of parents towards abusing, the degree of acceptance of abuse by the children themselves and the attitude of specialists toward this problem. It’s worth underlying the fact that in a society in which prevails the opinion that “any stick is good to beat a dog” it is difficult to fight this phenomenon massively and immediately. These attitudes reflected at the parents and children themselves, even among some experts, show the intolerant attitude towards child abuse. The phenomenon of abuse threatens all children regardless of their age, residence, gender, and social-economic level of the family. To illustrate this idea in the research there are presented data on the families of abused children, concentrating on cases treated in the Shelter. Abuse causes wounds in children, and these wounds hurt during all the life if we do not treat them. They bear the

risk of creating abusive future parents. Abuse causes emotional, mental and personality damages making abused children develop other characteristics from those of their peers. So, they do not ask for help, they do not know how to complain, isolate themselves, grow up prematurely, do not trust the people surrounding them, have disorders of eating, have problem with urination, and generally have disorders with learning and a poor and vulgar vocabulary characterises them. To illustrate these specific characteristics of children, through the chapter “Case Studies”, the research brings some concrete cases of children that are treated in the Shelter. The Constitution of the Albanian Republic of Albania, the Penal Code, the Civil Code and the New Family Code guarantee to children the protection of fundamental rights, but it still remains much to do in the function of the perfection of the legal framework. The research is provided with a special chapter, which summarises the conclusions and suggestions on the phenomenon in question. As a conclusion, it is pointed out the fact that the child abuse does not know any limit, but the children asking help come mainly from poor and risked strata of the society. During the last years, an increase of cases of extreme child abuse inside the family has been noted. Persons inside family or relatives carry out child abuse, although there is no lack of cases of child abuse by unknown persons. The roots of this phenomenon stand in the patriarchal mentality that characterises the Albanian family and the entire society in the country as well. Even though there is an increased level of awareness rising on child abuse among the population, it still remains much to do in order to overcome abusive stereotypes and models of parenthood. To achieve this objective, it is required a better collaboration among the civil society, structures of state, parents and experts of the field.

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2. INTRODUCTION 2.1 Child abuse in the family

Child abuse is not a new phenomenon to the modern society. It has been encountered since in the origin of humanity. The Roman law gave to the father the absolute right on his child. This right was understood as a right to act on child by every means. In the Middle Ages, children with mental retardation were burned into fire. With the evolution of human society, behaviours and attitudes towards children have changed and evolved as well. In most of the cases, parents have taken care of their children thus ensuring the surviving of human beings. Despite the cultural, religious or moral differences concerning the way of educating and upbringing a child, the majority of society never accepts child abuse. Family is always considered as the institution that is responsible for the upbringing of child and not for abusing of him. Different countries have experienced periods of various experiences related to the attitudes assumed towards child abuse. During the last century, the attitude toward the problems of child abuse took a full turning. The psychological thought, which marked an epochal development during this period, emphasised for the first time the importance of the stage of childhood in the development of individual’s personality and character. Psychologists, from that time and on put have put the stress on the using more humane methods for the education of children. Although law in many countries of the world prohibits child abuse, it still continues to be used by parents for disciplinary purposes. Meanwhile, the authors keep discussing about the problem of the definition of what can be considered child abuse and what can be considered discipline, and it there can be draw a dividing line between these two kinds of attitude. For the first time, the discussion about the problem of child abuse became public in ‘60s of the last century, time when Freud published his work “Abused child” which was followed by the book written by Heifer and Kemp “The Syndrome of the abused child”. Since that time, the public interest on the problems related to child abuse has increased more and more. Even in our country, attitudes related to this problem have changed through years. In the last decade of the last century, but also in the beginnings of the new one, problems like child abuse, women abuse, trafficking in human beings for exploitation, prostitution, or other

purposes have become part of discussions, debates, writings and publications, researches, policies and services in the function of groups at risk. Dealing with the problem of child abuse as a social problem has not a long history in Albania. This problem started to be discussed during ‘90s, time when the civil movement begun to take breathe as a result of political changes taking place in the country. The interest of public, state’s structures and specialists increased considerably thanks to the work of many NGOs, which not only organised awareness rising campaigns on the defence of children rights, victims of abuse, but also offered the first specialised psycho-social services and legal support. From the sociological point of view, the legitimacy of a social problem indispensably requires the study of the degree and dimensions of the threat that this problem presents for the society. Problems like child abuse, which involves many aspects and in most of the cases is kept secret, are difficult to be diagnosed in order to enable us possess a actual view of the social reality. The fact that this problem not only was not discussed previously, but it was kept secret and silent, makes its study more difficult. Being that the interest on the problem of child abuse has been in low levels, today, at least few available data or statistical figures can be found to illustrate the dimensions of this problem. The most possible study is the one which can be made on the basis of the cases treated by the services set up to come into help to this category of children, or on the ground of the opinions tested by questionnaires. In the recent years, the situation of child abuse seems to have changed. More and more, different organizations and institutions have initiated activities that aim the reduction of child abuse’s frequencies. The problem of child abuse is being discussed more often in media helping this way to the augmentation of specialised services for children. Although, we do not have a specialised service to help the children yet, and the realization of changes in legislation have become indispensable in order to achieve the international standards for the protection of children, the fat that the state has no more the monopoly over social problems, has yielded its effects in this aspect of individuals life as well.

2.2 Research methodology

The study on child abuse in Albania that we are presenting to those who are interested is based on the

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study on child abuse in Albania that we are presenting to those who are interested is based on processing cases of abused children treated in the Shelter for Battered Women and Girls in Tirana. These cases are collected over a time span between 1998 and 2004. This is also the period that this Shelter has been functioning as a specialised service for the category for abused women and girls, which, in most of cases, bring their children with them. These children are abused and traumatised no less than their mothers. Every child treatement in the Shelter is registered in a separate document in which recordes general data about age, district, family, problems the child displays, and the way of intervention. As a method for the collection of these recorded data, in general structured interviews have been carried out, but at the same time, there are realised unstructured interviews with children and mothers aiming the gathering of qualitative data and histories about each case. Conversations one-to-one with children, interpretations of their works, comments on tales or discussions over different movies or books, are only some of the ways employed to communicate with the children and to learn about the problems they experience and the degree of the impairment of their development. Also, the study presents to the reader a viewpoint of the phenomenon of child abuse in the family in Albania,

based on a professional literature. The research reflects other studies of individuals and organizations serving in this field. We think that it is appropriate to mention since in the very beginning of the study that in general, the registered cases refer to mothers, their profile and problems. In the case of the Shelter, there is lack of contacts with fathers, therefore the data on them are limited or collected by any indirect source processing cases of abused children treated in the Shelter

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Physical abuse is the most visible form of abuse and may be defined as any act which results in a non-accidental trauma or physical injury. Inflicted physical injury most often represents unreasonable, severe corporal punishment or unjustifiable punishment. This usually happens when a frustrated or angry parent strikes, shakes or throws a child. Physical abuse injuries result from punching, beating, kicking, biting, burning or otherwise harming a child. While any of these injuries can occur accidentally when a child is at play, physical abuse should be suspected if the explanations do not fit the injury or if a pattern of frequency is apparent. The longer the abuse continues, the more serious the injuries to the child and the more difficult it is to eliminate the abusive behavior.

3. THE CONCEPT OF CHILD ABUSE

3.1 Definition of Child abuse

Referring to many publications in this field, but also based in their experience in the work with cases of abused children, the authors of this study would define child abuse as: The Albanian legislation lacks a clear definition of child abuse. Both Criminal Code and Family Code do not provide a definition when an action or lack of action of a parent would be considered as child abuse. The lack of definition in the Albanian legislation makes it difficult the protection of the child in courts or other administrative institutions. However the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child provides a set of measures that state parties shall take to protect children from abuse and neglect.

3.2 Main forms of Child abuse Child abuse is manifested or realised in some forms: emotional, physical, sexualand neglect. In the practice of the treatment of abused children it is noticed that there are not pure cases of a single form of abuse. Child abuse is encountered in complicated forms in which there are interwoven all forms together or some of them. The following definitions refer to pure forms and we have decided to do so in order to enable the reader to understand better the causes that lead to various forms of abuse as well as the specific characteristics acquired by children who experience more than one of these forms or some of them.

a) Physical abuse

Often, slapping is considered as an act that serves to discipline the child, but in fact it is a child abuse despite if it leaves bruises or not. The use of physical force as a punishment crumbles destructively the needs of children for affection and shatters the inner world of the child. Physical abuse confirms once again the vulnerability of the infants at this stage of their life, their fear for their protection and the reality of their independence. In some cases, the parents, after screaming and shouting at their child, cannot control their emotions, and instead of trying

Child abuse is any mistreatment or neglect of a child that results in non-accidental harm or injury and which cannot be reasonably explained. Child abuse can include: physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse and neglect.

Article 39

Convention on the Rights of the Child States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to promote physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration of a child victim of: any form of neglect, exploitation, or abuse; torture or any other form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; or armed conflicts. Such recovery and reintegration shall take place in an environment which fosters the health, self-respect and dignity of the child.

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Emotional abuse is commonly defined as the systematic tearing down of another human being. It is considered a pattern of behavior that can seriously interfere with a child's positive development. Emotional abuse is probably the least understood of all child abuse, yet it is the most prevalent, and can be the cruelest and most destructive of all types of abuse.

What is Shaken Baby Syndrome?

When a baby is vigorously shaken, the head moves back and forth. This sudden whiplash motion can cause bleeding inside the head and increased pressure on the brain, causing the brain to pull apart and resulting in injury to the baby. This is known as Shaken Baby Syndrome, and is one of the leading forms of fatal child abuse. A baby's head and neck are susceptible to head trauma because his or her muscles are not fully developed and the brain tissue is exceptionally fragile. Head trauma is the leading cause of disability among abused infants and children.

to understand the child and to explain their behaviour, they use the physical force. Often, they justify these behaviours with parental disciplining. But, this kind of behaviour is nonsense. Children of different ages are not so responsible for things they or “their bad behaviours”. Abuse affects children of every age, from birth to the age of 18, time when they are considered adults. In Albania, in some cases, abuse happens even after this age. B. 10 years old, from Tirana, was thrown down from the 2nd floor of the building where his family lived in, by his father who accomplished this act after consuming a considerable quantity of alcohol. “God saved my son” – said his mother. Whereas M. will never forget that night when he went upstairs rushing in order to arrive as soon as possible home where his father was waiting to give him such a hard slapping so as to make his nose bleed.

b) Shaken Baby syndrome

Shaken Baby Syndrome occurs most frequently in infants younger than six months old, yet can occur up to the age of three. Often there are no obvious outward signs if inside injury, particularly in the head or behind the eyes. In reality, shaking a baby, if only for a few seconds, can injure the baby for life. These injuries can include brain swelling and damage; cerebral palsy; mental retardation; developmental delays; blindness; hearing loss; paralysis and death. When a child is shaken in anger and frustration, the force is multiplied five or 10 times than it would be if the child had simply tripped and fallen.

Often frustrated parents or other persons responsible for a child's care feel that shaking a baby is a harmless way to make a child stop crying. The number one reason a baby is shaken is because of inconsolable crying. Almost 25 percent of all babies with Shaken Baby Syndrome die. It is estimated that 25-50 percent of parents and caretakers aren't aware of the effects of shaking a baby.

c) Emotional Abuse

Because emotional abuse attacks the child's psyche and self-concept, the victim comes to see him or herself as unworthy of love and affection. Children who are constantly shamed, humiliated, terrorized or rejected suffer at least as much, if not more, than if they had been physically assaulted. An infant who is being severely deprived of basic emotional nurturing, even though physically well cared for, can fail to thrive and can eventually die. Less severe forms of early emotional deprivation may produce babies who grow into anxious and insecure children who are slow to develop or who might have low self-esteem.

Types of emotional abuse

Rejecting. Parents who lack the ability to bond will often display rejecting behaviour toward a child. They tell a child in a variety of ways that he or she is unwanted. They may also tell the child to leave, call him or her names and tell the child he or she is worthless. They may not talk to or hold the young child as he or she grows. The child may become the family scapegoat, being blamed for all the family's problems. Ignoring. Adults who have had few of their emotional needs met are often unable to respond to the needs of their children. They may not show attachment to the child or provide nurturance. They may show no interest in the child, express affection or even recognize the child's presence. Many times the parent is physically there but emotionally unavailable.

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Terrorizing. Parents may single out one child to criticize and punish. They may ridicule him or her for displaying normal emotions and have expectations far beyond his or her normal abilities. The child may be threatened with death, mutilation or abandonment. Isolating. A parent who abuses a child through isolation may not allow the child to engage in appropriate activities with his or her peers; may keep a baby in his or her room, not exposed to stimulation; or may prevent teenagers from participating in extracurricular activities. Parents may require the child to stay in his or her room from the time school lets out until the next morning, or restrict eating to isolation or seclusion. Corrupting. Parents permit children to use drugs or alcohol; to watch cruel behaviour toward animals; to watch pornographic materials and adult sex acts; or to witness or participate in criminal activities such as stealing, assault, prostitution, gambling, etc.

d) Sexual Abuse

The sexual abuse occurs at all strata of population, in rural and urban areas, in different social-economic and cultural levels. In general, the abusers are adults which familiar to children and their families. The abusers are not only adults; they may be other children who are up to five years older than the abused child or they are teenagers. The degree of damage caused to the child depends on the nature of abuse, age of the child and the environment.

The damages are not only those visible, but also the inner ones that accompany the child during his whole life. An example of sexual abuse is the case of A. 12 years old, which was sexually molested by her father. One day, her mother told that she found the father in a laying position over his daughter’s body. She reacted by calling police and leaving together with her children to come to the Shelter. Another example is that of three years old boy sexually molested by his father who caressed him all the time at the genitals. The child had acquired the same behaviour and reacted in the same manner towards the people around.

Types of sexual abuse

Non-touching sexual abuse offenses include:

Exposing children to pornographic material Deliberately exposing a child to the act of sexual

intercourse Masturbation in front of a child Indecent exposure/exhibitionism.

Touching sexual offenses include:

Fondling; Making a child touch an adult's sexual organs Any penetration of a child's vagina or anus by an

object that doesn't have a medical purpose.

Sexual exploitation offenses include:

Engaging a child for the purposes of prostitution Using a child to film, photograph or model

pornography.

Sexual abuse is any misuse of a child for sexual pleasure or gratification. It has the potential to interfere with a child's normal, healthy development, both emotionally and physically. Often, sexually victimized children experience severe emotional disturbances from their own feelings of guilt and shame, as well as the feelings which society imposes on them. At the extreme end of the spectrum, sexual abuse includes sexual intercourse and/or its deviations. These behaviors may be the final acts in a worsening pattern of sexual abuse. For this reason and because of their devastating effects, exhibitionism, fondling and any other sexual contact with children are also considered sexually abusive.

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e) Child neglect

B., five years old, was hospitalised for burning of the third degree in her leg. She went to the bathroom and trying to take a wash by herself, she turned on the tap of the hot water that burned her. Meanwhile, her mother was watching the soap operas in TV during a.m. hours. This case is an example of negligence to take care of the hygiene needs of the child. Y., ten years old, has no desire to go to school because his friends offend and make fun of him. The reason is that he smells of urine. The boy urinates during the night and his mother takes no care for his hygiene. He feels neglected twice or thrice. First, he does not enjoy an adequate hygiene. Second, he feels emotionally neglected, has no friends to play with. And, thirdly, the right to study is being negated to him. We should be very careful while working for the identification of the forms of negligence, since they may be misinterpreted. So, all children may get dirty while playing, and this is part of their experiences of game, but when child does not have a wash and his clothes changed for a long time, then we have to do with cases of negligence.

The types of neglect

Physical neglect - accounts for the majority of cases of maltreatment. The definition includes the refusal of or extreme delay in seeking necessary health care, child

abandonment, inadequate supervision, rejection of a child leading to expulsion from the home, and failing to adequately provide for the child's safety and physical and emotional needs. Physical neglect can severely impact a child's development by causing failure to thrive, malnutrition; serious illnesses; physical harm in the form of cuts, bruises and burns due to lack of supervision and a lifetime of low self-esteem. Educational neglect - occurs when a child is allowed to engage in chronic truancy, is of mandatory school age but not enrolled in school or receiving needed special educational training. Educational neglect can lead to underachievement in acquiring necessary basic skills, dropping out of school and/or continually disruptive behaviour. Emotional neglect - includes such actions as chronic or extreme spousal abuse in the child's presence, allowing a child to use drugs or alcohol, refusal or failure to provide needed psychological care, constant belittling and withholding of affection. This pattern of behaviour can lead to poor self-image, alcohol or drug abuse, destructive behaviour and even suicide. Severe neglect of infants can result in the infant failing to grow and thrive and may even lead to infant death. Medical neglect - is the failure to provide appropriate health care for a child although financially able to do so. In some cases, a parent or caretaker will withhold traditional medical care during the practice of religious beliefs. These cases generally do not fall under the definition of medical neglect; however, some countries will obtain a court order forcing medical treatment of a child in order to save a child's life or prevent life-threatening injury resulting from the lack of treatment. Medical neglect can result in poor overall health and compounded medical problems.

Child neglect is the most common form of child maltreatment reported to child protective services. It is defined as a "type of maltreatment that refers to the failure to provide needed age-appropriate care," such as shelter, food, clothing, education, supervision, medical care and other basic necessities needed for development of physical, intellectual and emotional capacities. Unlike physical and sexual abuse, neglect is usually typified by an ongoing pattern of inadequate care and is readily observed by individuals in close contact with the child. Physicians, nurses, day care personnel, relatives and neighbors are frequently the ones to suspect and report neglected infants, toddlers and preschool children.

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4. CHILD ABUSE AND LEGAL CONTEXT 4.1 Definition of child abuse and

neglect In the Albanian legislation there is a lack of clear definition on what can be considered as child abuse or neglect. For the purposes of this report, in Chapter 3, the researchers have explained what in their opinion, based on extended literature, will be considered child abuse and neglect, main forms and consequences.

4.2 Albanian legislation and child abuse

Although the Albanian Constitution of 1998, expresses clearly that every child enjoys special protection, it needs to be mentioned that this article has found little application in other laws and practice. The Criminal and family law still lack legal norms that can protect the child from abuse and neglect. As will be described in this research the lack of appropriate legislation is related to the lack of political will of the Albanian Government and Parliament to improve children’s rights legislation, lack of knowledge of the extend of the phenomena and its consequences to child development, and social mentality that supports the physical abuse of the child as a mean of discipline. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), approved by General Assembly of United Nations (1989) is an important universal legal instrument, which recognises and guarantees the respect of child dignity and his / her rights and freedoms. CRC, although it is a obligatory legal document to be taken into consideration

by the justice system in Albania, hasn’t found a full recognition and application into courts and other administrative institutions. The juvenile justice system is almost non-existent and children are dealt by the same legislation approved and applied for adults. The Criminal Code (1995) guarantees a special protection to children by crimes committed against children. However, based on existing legal norms, the Code guarantees only the protection of the child by sexual abuse in the family. But this protection does not extend to physical and emotional abuse. The Criminal Procedure Code (1995), guarantees some fundamental rights to children such as: the right of child to testify in the criminal process, the right for free legal assistance etc. In reality much remains to be done, because the trials in support or against the child are not carried out by juvenile judges, meanwhile social workers or psychologists are not allowed to offer their services during the trial. The Civil Code (1994) the child acquires complete judicial ability when he reaches 18 years of age, but the person under this age can participate in social organizations, have at his/her disposal what he gains income by his work, can deposit his/her savings and have them available for own needs. Also, the Code guarantees to children less than 14 years of age the right to perform by themselves juridical actions in accordance with their age and bring advantages without any counter effect, whereas a legal representative on his behalf performs the other judicial actions.

4.3 Family Code and the concept of ‘Parental Responsibility’

The new Family Code approved by the Parliament entered into force on 21 December 2003, starting its implementation of January 2004. The preparation of the new Code, although it took six years, did not bring the expected outcomes in terms of child protection and respect of his/her rights. There were several lobbying and advocacy campaigns by the civil society to improve child protection content in the Code. However these campaigns did not reach a full positive outcome, when it comes to the contents, definitions and norms of the Code.

Article 54, Constitution of Albania 1. Children, the young, pregnant women and new mothers have the right to special protection by the state. 2. Children born out of wedlock have equal rights with those born within marriage. 3. Every child has the right to be protected from violence, ill treatment, exploitation and their use for work, especially under the minimum age for work, which could damage their health and morals or endanger their life or normal development.

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However the new Family Code has included some new concepts, which are worth taking into analysis and see how can be applied to protect the children from abuse and neglect.

a) Parental Responsibility (PR)

Apart from the expected obligations for providing feeding, care, fatherhood and motherhood, the Code provides a range of definitions, one of which is ‘parental responsibility’, described at article 215.

Based on the Code, ‘parental responsibility are the duties and rights that aim to ensure emotional, social and material welfare of the child, by taking care and ensuring the child growth, education, legal representation and administration of his/her properties’. At first sight Article 215 is incomplete. First, the article lacks the subject that the article shall be applied for. It is not clear whether the parental responsibility it’s a rights and / or a duty of either parents or one of them, of a custodian or a relative of the child.

Secondly, Article 215 does not request the respect of the rights of the child, and contrary to the Convention, it rather limits the duties only to the emotional, social and material welfare, leaving uncovered the physical well-being of the child.

Thirdly, the definition of parental duties and rights does not include the prohibition of abuse of the child. The article does not use prohibiting language in the case when the exercise of rights and duties exceeds emotional, social and material welfare etc. There are several questions that can be raised related to Article 215, such as the following: what happens when the parent, believing that is taking care of his/her education or property etc uses means or methods that violate the child? Would the use of force or violence against the child based on the definition of Article 215 be considered as exercise of parental responsibility? The Code does not give an answer to these questions, leaving Article 215 open for interpretation.

b) When can parental responsibility be ‘lost’ or

‘taken away’?

Trying to answer to the questions expressed above, we decided to study two other articles of the Family Code, which deal specifically with ‘lost’ or ‘taken away’ parental responsibility, corresponding with Article 223 and 228.

At first, ones gets the idea that ‘lost’ is somehow a lighter measure than ‘taken away’. In itself the term ‘take away’ in difference with the term ‘loose’, suggests that a higher authority needs to intervene to take such a measure, such as the court. However the Code does not provide a definition for any of both terms. Are ‘lost’ and ‘take away’ meaning the same thing, when the final result is that parents or custodian will not have any more PR? Article 223 describes the conditions when PR can be lost and who can loose it. “Parents of the child can loose parental responsibility through a decision of crimes court that has sentenced them as offenders or assistants in a crime against their child, or as assistants in a crime conducted by their child…”-writes the Family Code. Basically what Article 223 is trying to say is that parent’s can ‘loose’ their parental responsibility if a criminal act is committed by them towards the child or by their child. However again a range of questions remain unanswered, such as: who takes the decision of ‘lost’ of parental responsibility? Is the decision taken by the crimes court part of the sentence of a criminal act? What does it happen to the child, when both parents loose PR? The Code does not provide information on these issues. Article 228 deals with the issue of ‘taking away’ the parental responsibility, describing the background how the court can take away the PR. Article 228, first paragraph said: “When the parent misuses the parental responsibility or when it shows a grave neglect in its exercise or with his actions have a negative impact in child education, with the request from the other parent, relatives, or of the prosecutor, can be taken away his parental responsibility The concern with article 228, same as article 223, is that leaves without answer the issue of child abuse in the family. At any moment the article, or any other article in the Family Code, do now provide an answer on ‘what happens with the abusing parent’ or ‘is it lack of parental responsibility when child is violated in the family’? Article 228 also does not provide any explanation whether the actions mentioned in this article shall be considered a criminal act or they are just not in compliance with the Family Code. Last, the article reduces the list of persons that can request to take away the parental responsibility. Some of those persons can include social workers,

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psychologists or teachers that may be the first in contact with the abused child.

4.4 Governmental policies and child

abuse The second National Strategy for the Children (2005-2015) approved on 30th May 2005 defines explicitly that the children have the right to a special protection by state, is an important document, which defines the strategic objectives of the policies of the Government of Albania in this sensible field of our social development. However little space has been to child abuse issue at the National Strategy, which shows that there are no governmental policies in place. The National Strategy for Children reconfirms civil, economic, social, cultural and political rights of children with the aim to transform it into a national and binding action for the frame and change of the intern laws of the State by the Albanian Government to conform to the provisions of the Convention. Differing from the previous document (National Strategy for Childtren in Albania 2000-2005) the new National Strategy raises its attention to the issue of abuse of children in institutions, child trafficking and prostitution, child labour, etc. However the Strategy lacks the attention that the Government shall show towards child abuse in the family. .

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School

Social Services

Health Services

NGO’s

State Police

Justice System

Community

Family

ABUSED CHILD

5. PROTECTION OF CHILDREN FROM ABUSE AND NEGLECT

5.1 Responsible institutions and child protection scheme

a) State Police The state police and Police Stations care about the child at the moment when they receive reports on cases of physical and sexual abuse against the child. The lack of a data collection system by the Police authority makes it almost impossible to study the role that the police play in the protection and care of abused and neglected children. The main role of the police and its staff is to take under protection and care the abused child, opening of a criminal investigation against the perpetrator, to guarantee the legal and psycho-social assistance and protection to the victim, and to refer the child to a specialised service such as social or health system. However, since there is a lack of child care and protection infrastructure, and in order to respect the legal procedures, often the police are faced with the fact that they have to send the child back to the abusing family. On the other side there is a total lack of institutional relations that should exist among the social services and the police.

During our work at CRCA with the police, we have seen that police officers do not know the public institutions responsible for child care, and in our understanding its not their obligation to request their assistance at any stage of the proceedings. Often, for a police officer its easier to contact free services (whether legal or psycho-social), provided to children by NGO’s, rather then state social services. There are no procedures or manuals in place to tell the police officers with whom they should get in contact or how to deal with an abused child. b) Health Services Health services have the duty to care about child health protection, through the promotion of physical, mental and sexual health of the child. However, although child abuse is a disturbing phenomenon for the society, still the health system lacks experts and infrastructure for the care, treatment and rehabilitation of abused children. It is the duty of health services to verify the forms and consequences of abuse to the child, whether this is

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physical, sexual or emotional. The facts and data gathered by the doctors are the ones that can serve as evidence to the police, prosecutors or courts. c) Social Services Although there is sometime that Social Services have been established in Albania, the system can be rather described more as a provider of financial assistance rather then as a service to communities and people in need. At the Social Services, at local and national level, there is not a single structure responsible for children of the families at risk. Although the laws establish methods for intervening on cases of child abuse those possibilities and opportunities haven’t been used. The Social Services is a governmental institution directly responsible for the monitoring and reporting of child abuse and neglect cases. However, so far there have been no cases uncovered, followed, referred or managed by this institution. This, shows the insufficient human, financial and infrastructural resources of the Service, which is still far from being at the services of the communities in Albania. This institution is responsible also for the establishment of a referral and case management system, by making part of its mandate the work with police, schools, health services, family, children and NGO’s. d) School The School, seen here as an independent system, can play an indispensable role in uncovering cases of child abuse in the family. Children spend relatively a long time at school and teachers are the first ones to face the consequences of abuse to the child. Often happens that teachers complain about misbehaviour or violence by children, but rarely these cases have been referred to social workers or psychologists working in schools. If teachers and educational authorities received appropriate training, they can help in protecting children from abuse. The role of the teacher is not to resolve or treat child abuse cases, but to refer them to the appropriate authority or expert.

e) Justice System Justice system is not only responsible for providing justice and sentencing the perpetrators of crimes against children, but also for establishing appropriate conditions for taking a child as witness, listening to children’s opinion and compensation for the damage caused to the child. The study of the role of justice system and how justice has been assisting children is difficult because of lack of data. The lack of juvenile’s court in Albania means that the judgment of child abuse cases is carried out by judges who lack expertise on children’s rights and CRC. We believe that the justice system need to change its attitude towards children, by opening new child-friendly court rooms and spaces and by establishing child-friendly procedures for a better treatment of the child when in court. f) NGO’s and civil society Although the role of NGO’s in not described in any document, they can play a major role in raising awareness at the level of the government and society at large, on the consequences of abuse to children. The civil society can play an important role in establishing new models of successful child care and protection services such as the establishment of help lines etc. g) Community The community can play an indispensable role in uncovering and reporting child abuse cases to the relevant authorities. Any kind of abuse against children makes a crime not only against the individual, but also against the society. The community is present, can see or observe both only cases of abuse against children, but also abnormal behaviour by children. Today there are many possibilities (means and tools) available for the community to report to the Police or Social Services cases of abuse against children.

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6. SOCIAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS CHILD ABUSE When we speak or examine a certain social problem, in general we focus on two aspects: the objective aspect and the subjective subject. The objective aspect deals with the real dimensions and the intensity of violation of values accepted by society. The subjective aspect assesses to what degree the public opinion is prepared to accept a certain problem as asocial one. As regards to the objective aspect of child abuse, though in the conditions of lacking data and recorded figures through years, it can be said without hesitation that this problem has assumed alarming dimensions. It puts at risk many children and young people. Knowledge on the subjective aspect of the problem of child abuse seems to be important in relation to the above mention description. Knowledge of the social attitudes about behaviour that has to do with child abuse allows us to understand the degree of society’s acceptability of specific social policies related to this problem as well as it helps to distinguish behaviours, which despite being into contradiction with known values, constitute a certain social standard. Speaking about the subjective degree of the problem of child abuse it results that often, politicians, journalists, even people maintain extreme and emotional attitudes. Cases in which people try to deny this problem or trying to present it is as interference into family privacy are not rare. Also, there exist cases illustrating the opposite, expressing the opinion that violence is present in every house. It is understood that in the conditions of demonstrating so many different attitudes, it is difficult to determine the attitude of society towards child abuse. Trying to assess this attitude, this study will consider some moments. . 6.1 Scale of acceptance by the society of child abuse in the family The use of physical abuse by parents and almost in all levels of society is considered as a method of child disciplining, a method fostered by tradition and sanctioned in customs. Often, this punishment is associated with the idea that “it is for of the child’s benefit”, that through it the obedience to the authority of the parent is ensured and this helps the creation of the family concept.

There are even proverbs that support such attitudes, such as: “any stick is good to beat a dog”, “beating makes good to the child”, “the more child is beaten, the more he becomes a better person”. In addition to the support made to physical punishment, we cannot leave without mentioning some differences related to gender. Though the male children are punished less, especially mothers are less willing to do so, more violence models are offered to them. Mainly, the father offers these models, but also by games and activities they are exposed to. Because the girls are less spared from punishing, they become accustomed to accept every form of abuse even since when they are very young. They learn to be obedient, not strong-headed, tolerant, but at the same time patient. As such, they can become object of abuse not only by their parents, but also by their elderly brothers or other members of family. This kind of differentiation in the attitude towards children, boys and girls, in relation to the physical punishment has its grounds on the different values for boys and girls in the family. The boy is seen as the future of the family, its successor, whereas the girl, being destined “to go to different family” should get socialized with the above-mentioned characteristics. From the surveys, it results that such attitudes are encountered more often at elders, families with low education, rural areas and males. To illustrate our conclusion, we would like to bring into attention the case of the father who executed his daughter because she went to spend some hours in a disco of Tirana together with her boyfriend. Not only the father had the courage to shoot his daughter, but also her mother did not hesitate to try to cover up the crime and present it as a natural death. As this attitude toward the case of extreme abuse did not suffice, members of the same community declared publicly that they would have done the same in a similar case. Which is the reason for abusing the child? Trying to have some answers for this question, through years we have contacted people of different professions and levels. It is important to mention for the purposes of this study the fact that the majority of the contacted persons share the same opinion on justifying physical violence in some specific cases. As such cases they mention indecent behaviours of the child, drugs use, school dropout, appropriation of money or valuables of other members of

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family or strangers. The violence used in these cases is considered as a means of educating the child. 6.2 Parents and their expectations by the child The experience of work with abused children proves that parents, which have been abused in their childhood exercise abuse. In general, we can say that are the abused who abuse. Cases of child abuse are met at every level of society and in various circumstances, but the most extreme as well as most encountered ones are those of families in which parents (mother and father) come from families in which violence it was exercised. In such cases, children learn violence by their parents as means or way to solve the problems and clashes that may arise within the family. Low level of education, adoption of violent models of communication, lack of tolerance and democratic spirit inside family, loss of control towards other members of family, and other issues related with lost of power, different dugs and alcoholics abuses, problems of mental health, lack of psycho-social information related to the age developments at child are only some of causes that lead to child abuse. One of these factors, which should be highlighted in the framework of this study, factor that contributes to stimulate violence exercised on children, is the lack of parents in establishing their expectations towards children. What happens in the practice of parent-child relationship is that a part of parents having had a somewhat difficult childhood ask for their children or expects them to become what they could not. Parents’ expectations do not take into consideration child’s abilities and capacities as well as the environment, changing values, new rapports and other psychosocial factors that influence on our children nowadays. Leaded by these expectations, parents make investments and sacrifices, sometimes beyond their real possibilities, but the results are not satisfying. In such cases happens what is often called disillusion of parents or difference between expectations and results. This kind of disillusion is encountered since the moment when the child goes to the kindergarten or school. There are not to be excluded cases when the source of disillusion is the birth of a child with disability or the anomalies acquired during life. Being in such unpleasant situations, some parents, without being able to manage the stress accumulated, discharge it to children in violent

forms and methods. In fact, this way started the installation of what is known in psychology as the “guerrillas fight” within the family. Children acquire such behaviours and abuse with each other and are trained as future abusers. It is not a surprise that in the future they turn to abuse with their parents and then become future abusers or perpetrators. 6.3 Scale of acceptance of abuse by the child How do children view and experience the violence exercised by their parents on them? In fact, violence is shocking to all children, the more shocking is when they are the parents, the most beloved people, which are expected to take care and offer love and devotion to them, the ones exercising it. This is the first blow for them, in a time that it is expected to establish a confidence with other people through the confidence that they enjoy with their parents. Then, later, happens what is called abuse adaptation. Children get used to percept and experience abuse as a normal way of their growth and education. If we compare the reactions of adult individuals to those of children themselves towards the punishment and abuse from their parents, it is noted the fact that children justified highly the violence exercised on them. Their opinions show that children are educated to think that beating, physical punishment, use of force etc, are ‘normal’ methods employed by parents to educate their children. These attitudes seem to be a result of parents influence rather than result of their own attitude towards the problem. Naturally, the values and prevailing attitudes in a society have their impact on such an attitude, even though is a fact that the increase of children information on their rights has made the last ones more sensible and less tolerant towards abuse. 6.4 Experts views on the phenomenon of child abuse in Albania Expert’s views consist on two components: the need of intervention in the protection of the child - victim and the need to intervene against the parent-abuser. While the Albanian society does not seem to be convinced yet about the necessity of intervention in the cases of child abuse,

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experts seem to consider the assistance to victims of domestic violence as a duty. According to them the intervention of institutions is necessary when a child suffers physically, psychologically and sexually, as a result of the abuse exercised on him/her. They hold that the intervention is necessary even in cases when the child is neglected. Despite the people’s opinion that in these cases “it is better not to interfere” because by doing so it may aggravate the situation of the child- victim, the experts express explicitly their opinion that in this cases intervention is necessary. This opinion seems to prevail among social workers, psychologists, and educators. Unfortunately, staff members of health system, social services and police do not share the same attitude. Perhaps, the second category is less aware about the consequences of child abuse and focus mainly on the primary services that they offer. In some cases, they fear getting involved in undesirable judicial processes. The second component that deals with parents’ attitudes is more complex. It cannot escape the prevailing mentality, which justifies to some extent the violence exercised on children. However, specialists consider intervention to help the abused person as a necessity. Unfortunately, in Albania we don’t have any legislation to determine when to intervene except for cases of extreme violence. Specialists say that their intervention becomes difficult even for the fact that there is lack of specialized services for abusers’ treatment. Such services would influence on preventing the large number of cases of abused children and to lower the level of abuse. The majority of specialists are categorical as regards to the opinion that in Albania there is lack of a child care system for children-victims of domestic violence. The only services available are those offered by some organizations or groups. Even though these are specialised services, they are still not supported by public polices and funding. It is their sensibility, philosophy and formation that have enabled this kind of services. What exists today in the levels of policies, legislation and services cannot defend by any means all children at risk. .

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7. SCALE OF CHILD ABUSE IN ALBANIA

7.1 Scale of the phenomenon Trying to identify the dimensions of this phenomenon in our society, we have to emphasise that object of this study are children of abused mothers. Therefore, in these conditions it is difficult to express general considerations, but we feel that it is appropriate to emphasise that the experience of work in the Shelter for Battered Women, has helped us to understand the fact that all children are at risk of abuse despite age, residence, gender, social-economic level of the family and its status. There is an aspect to be considered. The majority of children approaching services of the Shelter came from poor, unassisted families with limited or short of means of living, of an unstable status that has induced them to address and cast their eyes to this service. This fact can by no means and for no reason cover all the cases of other children coming from well-off families in which the existence of sufficient resources enables or facilitates the hiding of the problem for the moment, but certainly not whitewashing it. Children become direct or indirect victims of abuse. In most of the cases, they have been present during moments in which violence has been exercised on other members of family, mainly their mothers. They have experienced painfully the violation of their dearest person; have tried to become her supporter to relieve ever so little her pain, have hated the abuser but at the same time it has been difficult for them to abandon or despise him. They have passed through moments of difficult dilemmas for their age and experience. In such violent environment it is not by coincidence that they become direct object of physical abuse exercised on them by the father, mother or elder siblings. Many of these children are abused emotionally too. As mentioned above, generally these children come from families with problems: their parents are divorced, remarried, with social, mental, socio-economic, personality problems, etc. But, this does not mean that children of other social groups are not risked by violence.

7.2 Profile of an abusing family

Residence of the family

The majority of cases come from different areas of the country, also those coming from Tirana, have settled there during the last years. The districts from which the majority of clients come are: Berat, Lushnja, Shkodra, Lezha, Korça, Dibra, Pogradeci, Elbasani. We have presented them graphically grouped on the ground of the geographic areas: North Albania, South Albania, Central Albania or other zones outside the borders. These data shows that children that live in less developed districts or from families that migrated to Tirana with sharp social problems related to their adaptation in a new environment with different values than the ones they were grown up with are the most exposed to abuse. This does not mean that children born and grown up in Tirana are not abused, or are not at risk of abuse, but they may find support and solutions of the problem within systems of their families, and do not approach always the service in question.

Clients based on residence

41%

24%9%

19%6%

Tirana

North of Albania

South of AlbaniaMiddle of Albania

Kosova

Foreign

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a. MOTHER’S PROFILE Mother’s education

About 80% of clients treated in the Shelter have received the 8-years of education or higher. 10 percent of them have received elementary education and 9 percent of them have academic education.

Abusing spares no social strata of different levels of education. In this case, we emphasise that violence happens more often in families of low educational level, since this level does not provide sufficient possibilities to meet the requirements of life. In such families, the level of stress to survive is higher and it is the cause for going beyond the limits and harming the dearest persons. This does not mean that those that are educated do not exercise violence. The above figures prove it. Mother’s civil status

About 50% of mothers were married, 10 % divorced or cohabiting with their partners, about 40 % were girls or unmarried women. The fact that the majority of these mothers come from families based on marriage shows that most of abuse cases are encountered within marriage. Meanwhile, divorce, anxiety of divorce, insecurity of cohabitation, undesired children or those born within cohabitation

make up other circumstances that increase the frequency of abuse. Number of Children per family Most of clients have come to the Shelter together with their children, about 70 % of them. The number of children has varied from 1 to 4. 25 % of them were childless and 6% were pregnant out of wedlock, or without being married and gave birth to their children during the stay at the Shelter. Children have been abandoned following the practices of giving them for adoption. Such a decision is taken by single-mothers under the pressure of their families. In most of the cases, children of abused mothers have also been abused average. Employment and profession The Majority of clients, 38% of them, consist of working women, 30% are unemployed, 13 % are professionals of an intermediate level, 11% are professionals of a high level, 4% result to be housewives and 4% are students. In the case of the unemployed women, in distinction from housewives, we should emphasise that the former have lost their job, whereas, it results that housewives have never worked outside their homes, but their only preoccupation has been caring for the family. As it is understood by the abomination data, the majority of the clients have done jobs of low level. This thing has not impeded the development of their work habits, and as a result the majority has difficulties to compete in the present work-market. It is thought that the employment status of the mother influences directly on the frequency of mother abuse. Mothers that suffering economical dependence, or that are not satisfied with their job, or that are tired from work, or that are unsatisfied by the status or kind of job, or that are bored by their staying home always risk to abuse with their children in all forms mentioned above.

Education level

10%

46% 35%

9% Primary

Secondary

Middle school

University

Civil status of mothers

41%

49%

4% 6% Single MarriedCohabitingDivorced

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b. FATHER’S PROFILE

Trying to portray the profile of violent fathers, we will use those data gathered by the conversations with children or their mothers. In most of interviews with children, fathers result to be jobless (over 70% of the cases). In these conditions, they have problems of self-esteem, experience loss of authority, loss of the status as the head of the family and try to restore their authority by exercising violence on the members of the family. Abusing fathers are alcohol or drug addicted, and according to data, they gamble losing in this way the income of the family, the money for food etc, and react violently toward critics made to them by family members. These fathers, besides offering to their children a model of parasitism, behave dangerously to the stability of the family, thus becoming the main source of all forms of abuse. We think that it is of interest to underline that a category of no little significance of abusing fathers are included to illegal activities (such as: trafficking in children, trafficking in drugs, forgery of documents) or have illegal businesses. They are constantly anxious for loosing everything, getting arrested, failing, and this stress is discharged at the children as well. This category reaches up to 30% of the cases. Also, there are cases when fathers are mentally sick and do not take medication, but, they are scarcely declared, because of the wife’s lack of information.

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8. PROFILE OF THE CHILD AND CONSEQUENCES OF ABUSE

8.1 The Profile of an abused child Age of the Child In general, the children treated at the Shelter are of different ages. 28 percent of them belong to 0-3 years age group (almost half of children in this group are borne at the Shelter), 15 percent of children belong to 4-6 years age group, 24 percent of them to 7-10 age group and 19 percent of them to 11-14 age group. Only in particular cases, there have been children of over than 14 years of age due to the acceptance criteria in the Shelter. All of them were girls. As it is seen by the figures, violence has not left out children of any group age; they become victims regardless of being very little or relatively older. It is understood that children of older ages, from 7 to 11 years old, succeed to understand better what happens to them and to describe the violent situation that they have experienced. Gender Abused children treated at the Shelter were boys and girls both at an almost equal ratio, concretely 47 percent girls and 53 percent boys. We can make a distinction here that the boys are those who report more cases of physical abuse that girls, whereas mainly girls report the cases of sexual abuse. Type of abuse As regarding to the types of abuse exercised to children, we saw that abuse was of the three types mentioned above. So, it results that 20 percent of children were physically abused, 3 percent of them were sexually abused including cases of molestations and harassments by their fathers and 100 percent of children have experienced emotional abuses such as: pressure, isolation, economic abuse, deprivation of their rights, etc.

8.2 Consequences of child abuse Based on cases we have drawn some general conclusions related to the consequences of abuse to children. Despite of the form of abuse exercised on them, the abused children have similar or almost similar experience One of these is the emotional abuse to the child. The physically, psychologically, but even sexually abused child suffers emotionally from the infrequent parental care and the fear of other abuses that can follow. These children suffer the emotional negligence, the lack of affection and strong relationships with their parents. In the case of sexual abuse, they fear the fact that they will remain in the hand of the abusers for fulfilling their emotional needs. The neglected children suffer the lack of care for fulfilling their emotional needs.

G. is a four years old child who comes to the Shelter together with his mother. Both are extremely abused by the father and husband respectively. He had abused with his wife in the presence of the child. The boy was terrorized. He was worried for the fate of his mother, but also for his own. Often he said about his father: “How terrible he his, he can cut people with a knife.” As if this didn’t suffice, his mother threatened him always telling that she would abandon him. In these conditions, he only patted his mother and made to her maximal evaluations: “You are the most beautiful mommy in world”, “you are my star”, “you are the most beautiful woman in the world”, caressing and trying to never bother her. Differently from his peers, he took extremely good care of himself; he ate by himself without complaining, dressed by himself and took care of his own things. His main concern was that the mommy should not get tired or annoyed.

The above-mentioned example, but other examples as well show that children undertake premature responsibilities. They become responsible for their behaviour, take care for the quietness and happiness of their parents, take care of their parents and brothers and sisters, comfort the mother when she is desperate, do all

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the housework and try to the utmost to keep the family united.

M. is a 13 years old child, well built physically and psychologically. He is very smart and excellent pupil, calm and very mature for his age and rarely communicates with others. His only concern was how to unite his parents. Often, he negotiated with his mother and asked for meetings with his father. Surprisingly, he did not play the role of the messenger between mother and father, but asked to them to unite as soon as possible. To all the workers it was created the impression that this was the aim of his life, which is not a little responsibility if we consider his age and experience.

Besides what we mentioned above, this category of children undertakes responsibilities to determine when to approach their parents and when not. Also, they undertake and try to avoid litigations in the family. All this has a high price for them. They mature prematurely. In one way or another childhood is negated to them.

R. is 12 years old boy well built physically but very shy. Also he was very educated. The education that he demonstrated, distinguished him among other children at the Shelter, and among many cases treated by this service as well. He was very connected to his mother and tried to be perfect in everything he did in order to satisfy her. He felt ashamed for his father’s behaviour and did not prefer to talk about it even when members of working staff there asked him. His whole world was concentrated on drawings in which seemingly he expressed his emotions. His concern was the well-being and good humour of his mother. Being that he was present in many cases in which his father abused with his mother, and with him as well, he tried at any cost to make his mother gain good humour. In this case, his efforts to have excellent results at school had their explanation just in this concern.

The abused children are characterised by the lack of confidence towards other people that surround them. This is explained with the fact that being abused by such individuals that are presupposed to take care of them, children cannot establish confidence relations with other people. This is a characteristic encountered at almost all the children treated at the Shelter, but for illustrating purposes we will present the case of two children, brother and sister, from Tirana.

They have six and four years of age respectively, and are closely connected to their mother. It is obvious that they have experienced the terror of indirect abuse, not related to them, but that of their mother. Their father was prudent not to abuse with the mother in front of children, but they have realized it by the tears always present in the eyes of their mother and by what she told them as well. She made her children part of story. Since she had not any one to share he dolour with, she did this with her children. Their reaction was the acquirement of the distinctive characteristics of abused children. They are concerned about her well being, stay close to her all the time, and don’t allow her to leave from them even for a while to meet the psychologist or social worker at the Shelter. What is most worrying is that these children do not communicate to anyone in the Shelter, even for their needs, a toy, an activity, or things like that. They even do not tell their names to the social workers. Distrust towards others and the fear that they can abuse with their mother is read in their eyes. They are vigilant as much as they are distrustful.

Abused children are characterised by the desire not to ask for help. Maybe, this is conditioned by their experiences, when nobody has taken care of them. In such circumstances, they are used to take care of themselves, their needs and to normally consider this as their own responsibility. Those are children that do not cry or complain. They try to enjoy everything that may be offered to them without too much pretence. Children form characters of a close, non-communicative nature and suffer too much within themselves, share a little or at all their painful experiences with others. They feel ashamed by the situation in their families and try at any cost to hide this problem. This is the reason why they become cold, wild and get angry unexpectedly. In some cases, they become apathetic, without desires, are different from their peers, without initiatives and irascible.

B. is four years of age. He has a good physical development, but has not escaped the consequences of violence exercised on his mother by the father. He is very vivid, inattentive and it is impressive the fact that he does not speak, but screams. He screams when he needs anything, when someone says something to him, and is seems that only creaming is his way of communication. When one takes him in the arms to caress him should be very attentive because B. may hit in the face unexpectedly even

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when one thinks that he has no reason to behave like this.

Another characteristic of these children is that they suffer by eating disorders. Some of them suffer anorexia and some others suffer bulimia. Generally, it is encountered anorexia. Differently said, children seem to refuse foods as a revenge sign to the direct or indirect abuse made to them. Only by the cases mentioned above, one of them suffered obesity. He ate everything, never refused the food, but studying him attentively it was understood that food served him to fulfil all those deficiencies that he suffered in silence. So, obesity became another suffering. Along other problems, the children have problems with urination. Regardless their age, many of them, especially in the first phase of their placement in the Shelter, urinate during the night. In no case, this problem has not been related to any health problems. It has been a problem related to emotional disorders. In most of cases, mothers say that this problem has not occurred frequently. It emerged by the time when domestic started. Hence, early in their childhood, these children have acquired the ability to control their personal needs. With the passing of years, as a result of their emotional problems, they have lost this ability.

M. and E. are two sisters of six and four years of age respectively. Their mother tells that they did not have this problem some years ago. Everything started when their father came back from the log emigration and has had suspicions about his wife’s behaviour. He became too aggressive, suspicious and menacing. He abused physically his wife everyday after interrogating her for hours to tell her lover. The girls were present during all the time. He even menaced his wife with firearms and knives that he would take her life away if she did not tell that who her lovers were. Besides other problems, the girls begun to urinate during the night, thus are aggravating their situation more and more.

Among the abused children there are children that manifest signs of mental retardation, which are moderated initially, but if they are not treated there exists the risk of becoming worse, entering into more advanced and aggravated levels of mental retardation.

D. is a seven years old girl. Even though she has reached the school age, her mother, who has many problems, but also is aware to some extent of the mental retardation of her daughter, has decided to send her not to school. D. was born normally, but soon after her birth the problems for the parents

begun. The father losses his job and starts to drink. Her mother tries to work more to compensate her husband’s loss of job. She finds two jobs and let’s her mother to take care of the child. Here starts the problem, D. fell ill often in her infancy and did not take medicines (a clear negligence by the side of her parents) and this situation leads to a tardy motor development initially (D. starts to walk at the age of two). D. does not achieve to establish the bi-directional relationship with her mother, which is assessed as irreplaceable for the upbringing of a child. This deficiency is created as a result of the negligence of her mother related to her overworking time. D. uses a very poor vocabulary in the dialect of the grandmother very unelaborated for her age. In total, she has a slight retardation of the coordination of mental processes, which is result of the problems and deficiencies in infancy. As if this did not suffice, her father dies of alcohol overdose, and she and her mother were thrown into street by the relatives of the father. D. feels this loss and during all the time asks for her father. Now, the contacts with her mother are rarer since she has to work harder to survive. The situation of D. risks worsening more.

As a conclusion, the abused children experience an interruption of the normal process of their physical and psychological growth. This interruption can be expressed in the form of skipping stages and or stagnation in an early stage of growth. Both situations are dangerous for the child, but in both cases, if it is carefully, professionally intervened on time, the consequences either may be completely eliminated (in the best case) or may be reduced.

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9. CASE STUDIES CASE STUDY A G is a boy of four years of age. He was born by the relationship of his very young parents. His mother was only 17 years old when she gave birth to her son. She herself came from a dysfunctional family; with divorced parents, and to some extent she felt abandoned. With the hope to start a better family life, she decides to leave the house of her grandfathers (father’s side), in which she had lived for some years to cohabitate with a young boy, who had no more than 20 years of age, known in the community as “a tough guy”. Soon, she remained pregnant and this worried her partner very much, who seemingly did not have serious intentions towards her. The birth of the child aggravated the situation further. The father leaves home for many days and weeks. When he returns, he beats and abuses with the mother of G. Even, he often threatens her with life. Meanwhile that nobody undertook to protect or shelter her, she addresses our Shelter. G. accompanied his mother since the first meeting. He did not accept in any way to part from her even for a while, time needed to complete the acceptance procedures. G. seems terrorised and followed with his eyes every move of his mother. His mother told about the abuse exercised on her and often repeated: “you may ask my son if you want and turned towards him. G. affirmed by shaking his head as a grown up boy, thus making it clear that he had been present in all the cases and had experienced everything,. With their regulation at the Shelter, it seemed that things were calming down initially, while mother and son begun to reflect about the consequences of violence exercised on them. Even though G. was a healthy boy, he had a small built. As if violence and dolour had hold back the development of his young body. In general he was calm, but never said a word without looking at her mother for her approval. He was used to come to her defence in all the manners. He never worried her. He waked up and waited for hours till her mother gave him the permission to move. He took care for everything by himself. He dressed, ate and washed his hands by himself. He was never choosy. His mother’s word was a law for him. Slowly, it was discovered that this behaviour was related to her frequent threatens that she might abandon him as his father did. Exhausted by her problems, alone in such situation, without any kind of support, being eaten by a guilty conscience for a wrong or hastened decision, she discharged her entire emotional charge on her son, who was the only person she could communicate with. In

these conditions, he had undertaken to care for her mother, to excuse her, even to cover certain behaviours of hers. Often, we saw him approach her hesitantly, weep her tears, caress and saying: “the beautiful”. There were cases in which he even said lies to excuse the leaves of his mother from the Shelter. “My mom has gone to the physician”, was an expression that he was instructed to say. Astonishingly, he did not make any other comment. When he was asked about his father, he always repeated the same declarations that his mother had made. “He is a killer”, “He has a gun,” “he wanted to cut my mom’s belly with a knife”, were some expressions that he repeated about his father. He never asked to meet him. The lack of the masculine model was evident in his behaviours. He behaved like a girl. He used the make-up of his mother and combed his hair like her. He imitated her on everything. In the conditions of the lack of attention and affection by the side of this mother, he tried to find warmth and support at every worker. His way to attract their attention was through reciting poems. Of course, they reflected the low level of culture of his mother, but he used the mastery of a child who makes every effort to survive. The poem: “O moj pula pikaloshe, që shëtit qoshe më qoshe, as më bën një kokërr vezë, ta haj për mëngjes” (Hey, you dotty hen that jump corner to corner, why don’t you give me an egg and I’ll eat it for breakfast?) was the present that he offered to every worker in exchange of a little affection. When there were noticed some abnormal behaviours and doubting relations at his mother, and the workers reminded her rules of the Shelter, the reaction of G. was immediate. The next day he was gloomy and not at all friendly with the staff. He was peevish because of his mother. G. cried always when he was alone. He never rebelled. He made the impossible to entertain the other children in the Shelter. But he had a constrained nature, was emotionally charged, sly, liar, and it seems that he was grown up prematurely. CASE STUDY B He came to the Shelter together with his mother after an experience of extreme violence exercised on his mother in front of the son. B. had only three years of age. He was very weak physically, inattentive, very changeable, in the limits of hyperactivity, aggressive and unpredictable in his behaviours and outbursts. He did not like to socialize

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or play with other children or adults. He screamed continually. Screaming was his way of communication when he asked for something or something was asked to him. It seems that the nervous screams were the way of communication of his father. Speaking was not developed normally, maybe for the reason mentioned above, but also for the fact that he lived in the same house together with the grandfathers and the uncle, and all of them had problems of communication. According to the words of the mother of B. people used to scream, beat each other, crash objects, break chairs and they were always in tension. B. kicked the other children and workers, and if he take someone by surprise, he would slap or bite him/her. He was very connected only to his mother. But, this connection was realized in the conditions of emotional overcharge, was abnormal. He slept together with his mother in the same bed and their body positions did not maintain the personal distances. This kind of behaviour became object of staff’s observations and evaluations, and it was revealed that the boy had been present when the father abused his mother sexually, after beating and leaving her undressed for hours. One day during their stay in the Shelter, the 3 years old boy approached one of the workers of the Shelter imitating intimate relations. After conversations with his mother, it was discovered that the child might had been victim of sexual abuse exercised on him by his father. As a conclusion, we can say that B. was a typically abused child. All characteristics of a sexually, physically and emotionally abused child were found in him. CASE STUDY C M. was a twelve years old girl. She came to the Shelter together with her mother from a southern district of the Albania. She had a normal physical and mental development. She was silent, a little introverted, with high self-respect, correct, average at school even though she was intelligent, but not very attentive and has no much volition. Her mother was married many years ago with a countryman younger than her. He was jobless; alcohol addicted and conducted a life of parasite. After settling in the town and becoming co-proprietor of the house, he starts to exercise extreme violence on his wife. Violence was of all forms and everything happened in the presence of the girl, which was actually grown up and had started

to understand. Personally destroyed by violence, but also terrorised by the idea that her husband could abuse with her daughter, which had entered into the stage of puberty actually, asked for the divorce, divorces, losses everything of the family possessions, even though she was beneficiary of the house by her parents, and for a certain time she lived under the same roof with her ex-husband. This aggravated even more the situation and the woman was obliged to leave the town because she felt prosecuted and threatened in every moment by her husband. At first, M. rejoiced about coming to Tirana, but very soon, she begun to miss her father. She became more introverted and started to pass the time drawing and working in pastel. From time to time, she entered into a room together with any of children, closed the door and undressed them. The other mothers were alarmed by her behaviours. She said that they played at housekeeping. She did not prefer to talk about her father, but even in those cases that she said anything about him, it was not negative. She suffered his absence. She missed his caresses despite the reservations of her mother. M. had adopted negative behaviours in this situation trying to profit as much as she could from her parents. She menaced her mother that she would leave and go back to her father if she did not buy her whatever she asked. On the other hand, she pressed the father to buy her whatever she asked if he wanted her to inform him about the ex-wife: who did she meet, where did she go, or work. M. had started to experience malformation of the personality, without having it completely formed yet. CASE STUDY D A. is a 10 years old boy. He is in the fourth class. He is physically weak. He does not eat regularly. He is very changeable, not very attentive, likes to play with other children, but he mocks, hits, and curse them by using a dirty vocabulary, and is sly. He came to the Shelter together with his mother, which was extremely abused by her husband. Her living became impossible in the house. She did not see any way how to change her husband’s behaviours. Against the aggravation and worsening of the relations of the couple, the boy continued to be very connected to his father and worship him. His mother told that recently the boy became himself victim of the violence exercised by his father. Asked about the attitude of his father toward him, he says:

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“Yes, my father beats me. Even one day he beat me badly. He said to me to go and buy a packet of cigarettes and I went downstairs running, but when I came back, I met a friend of mine. We talked for some minutes about sport and then, I entered home. Unexpectedly, I received such a hard slap into my face and I had nosebleed. I don remember anything more, but when I opened my eyes I found myself in bed and my mom was crying over me. Later, she said that I lost conscience. But this is not the only case. My father beats me for nothing. He does the same with my mother.“ Even though the situation was as it is described above, he managed to unite his parents. CASE STUDY E B. is a nine years old boy. He is well built physically, handsome, but suffered the disease haemophilia. His disease had connected him more with his mother. Time after time, he was obliged to take plasma at the hospital and always his mother accompanied him. His mother was very sensible to the situation of her son, not only for the fact that he suffered from an incurable disease, but also for she was diagnosed as carrier of this health problem. Her husband blamed her all the time for the problem of their son and she felt responsible for this situation. After some years of marriage, from which they had two boys: B. and his elder brother, the father who worked at the informal market of money exchange fell in love with an ambulant seller. He decided to divorce from his wife, drove her out the house and kept the older son with him. After this, he applies for the American Lottery, wins and leaves together with his second wife and older son. B. and his mother remained hopeless, without any support. They harboured at the Shelter temporarily. During this time, B. displays difficulties in socializing with other children. He had a very poor and vulgar vocabulary, and often addressed his mother with a language, which implies that he imitates his father. B. experienced an inner revolt as a result of his separation from his elder brother and the abandonment of his father. This revolt was expressed in relation with his mother, but also with the other children, which he treated harshly and without kindness. He felt bed even for the reason that his father had chosen his elder brother to take with himself in America. B. often said: “My father did not love me because I am sick, that’s why he took my brother…”. Sometimes he threatened his mother by saying: “It is you that made me sick”.

The low educational level of the mother was expressed even in some differentiating attitudes that she took towards her children. She said that her older son was cleverer, handsome, noble, whereas B. was of a small built and so handsome as his brother. All of this has influenced ion the creation of a low self-evaluation at b., which was expressed all the time in various forms. B. has low results at school as a result of the low motivation, inattentiveness, and lack of help by his mother. B. is a relatively isolated child and carries the typical characteristics of an abused child. CASE STUDY F They are brother and sister. They resemble each other very much both in the physical aspect and as nature. They are twelve and six years old respectively. Their parents were married with love, but they started to have problems after the birth of the girl. After the first divorce, they decided to reunite and this time their marriage was blessed with the birth of their son. Meanwhile, things have not changed. They are only aggravated more. The history of divorces, separations, unions, even by force, has continued non-stop. Both children have been present while their father abused in all forms with their mother. Even they did not escape abuse. M. the eldest child, besides being beat and cursed by her father, who used a vulgar vocabulary, was driven together with her brother out in the middle of the night to punish them for supporting their mother. M. was also sexually abused by her father. Seeing that his daughter was growing up each day, he began to molest her sexually. Her mother tells that he touched her in intimae parts, caressed her in a provocative manner and pretending that he was drunk he laid over his daughter body or asked her to press him on all the parts of his body. The mother was terrorised. She denounced him, but he never stopped and she and her children suffered the consequences of this action. M. does not like to talk about her father. She is shy, non-communicative, and it seems like everything that happens around frightens her. She makes maximal efforts to hide her pain. She feels insecure. She is inattentive and focuses for a long time on object that doesn’t seem to have any special importance. She has no desire to learn and makes the impossible to miss school. She has poor results at school. She urinates at night since a relatively long time.

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She suffers it very much, and after the medical control it was proved that the problem had emotional basis. Asked about her experiences, she does not pronounce easily, but points out that: “I miss home, but I don’t want to go there because I know what expects us...” On the other hand, her brother is very active and communicative. He makes friends easily. But, it is evident that also tries to hide things. He is sly. He behaves well with the workers, but in their absence he behaves very bad with her mother and sister. He curses and offends them and it seems that the he imitates his father trying to play the role of the leader of the family. Even the vocabulary that he uses is a typical vocabulary of the street, just like his father’s. He experienced all forms of abuse and he hates his father, thing that he, unlike his sister does not hide. His nature completely changes when he says that: “I’ll kill him when I will grow up.” He is very connected to his mother and sister, and all hi attention is concentrated on drawing.

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10. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

10.1 Conclusions

Child abuse is a wide spread phenomenon in Albania, because of tradition of violence in the family, lack of specialised institutions to fight against child abuse, lack of legislation and infrastructure in place for the rehabilitation of abused children.

Child abuse does not have any limits in the level

of age, education, social or economical status of the family.

Children that come from marginalised groups of

society are more exposed to all forms of abuse in the family.

The phenomenon of child abuse in the family has

increased during the recent years, showing signs of extreme abuse, including murders within the family.

Violence and abuse against children is generated

by the patriarchal mentality of the Albanian family that sees the violence against the child as a mean of discipline. The abuse against the child is carried out mainly by parents, but also by relatives.

The awareness on child abuse within the family

and its consequences on child’s personality, have not been a priority to the Government and its institutions. This brings as a consequence a wider use of abuse against the child in the family, since there are no penalties in place against abusing parents.

Albanian Government does not provide any

specialised services for the treatment and rehabilitation of abused children and so far there have been no measures to support the establishment of such infrastructure.

Institutions such as Police, Social Services,

Health and Education are not prepared to recognise the signs of abuse or to establish a referral and case management system, because of lack of political will, human and

financial resources, training and appropriate infrastructure in place.

Existing legislation in Albania does not stimulate or

make it obligatory to public officials (teachers, social or health workers) the reporting to the responsible institutions such as police or social services of child abuse cases. As a consequence there is a vicious circle in place, where the child that demonstrates or claims that has been abused, ends up being abused again because he / she told that has been abused.

The interventions of civil society to increase services

and awareness on child abuse have been limited. The cooperation among the civil society and the Government, when it comes to work for the elimination of the phenomenon has not been at the expected level, becoming part of the wide spread mentality that the children issues are a matter only of the family.

The situation as shown by the data and facts shows

that there is an urgent need for training of teachers, physicians, lawyers, social workers, psychologists, police officers, journalists etc.

Parents also need to be informed and trained on how

to be a good parent, child abuse consequences etc.

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10.2 Recommendations Taking into consideration described above and based on data, facts and conclusions of this research, it is necessary to recommend a list of necessary changes and activities at different levels. For the Albanian Parliament o The Parliament in cooperation with the Government

shall prepare and approve the law against child abuse in Albania.

o The Parliament shall establish a sub-parliamentary

commission for Children, which should be responsible for the monitoring of children’s rights in the country, organise public hearings with representatives of the Government and its institutions on child abuse and other children rights issues.

For the Albanian Government o To prepare supporting policies for abused children,

and shall stimulate of legislative improvement for the prohibition of any form of abuse and violence against children in Albania.

o The Government shall increase its network of public

services and necessary staff for abused children. o The Government shall plan necessary financial

resources to support of specialised services for abused children.

o The Government shall make it a priority the

employment of social workers and psychologists in institutions that deal with education, care, treatment and rehabilitation of children (schools, police stations, hospitals, community centers, prisons etc).

o The Government shall organise a National Public

Campaign to increase the awareness of parents, public opinion, governmental employees, and children on the prevention of abuse against children.

o The Government shall see as a priority the funding of

NGO programmes and services for the rehabilitation and re-integration of ab used children.

o The Government shall take measures for the

establishment of a free of charge National Help Line for Children.

For the Ministry of Education (MoE) o MoE shall include in the school curricula the issue of

abuse against children, in order to increase the awareness and response against the phenomenon among children.

o MoE shall include in the training curricula of teachers

and teacher’s universities modules related to child abuse.

o MoE shall guarantee to all children attending schools

the assistance of social workers and / or psychologists.

o MoE through an internal decision shall order the

referral of all cases of child abuse discovered in schools to the relevant authorities.

o MoE shall prepare and approve intrernal protocols

and standards for the identification of abused children, protection of their privacy and their referement to the relevant authorities and institutions.

For the Ministry of Health (MoH) o MoH shall take immediate steps for the establishment

of a referral and case management system in all levels of health system.

o MoH shall make available training on child abuse and

its consequences to the medical staff, especially at local level.

o MoH shall include in the curricula of new medical

specialists modules on child abuse and its treatment, referral and case management systems.

o MoH shall prepare and approve intrernal protocols

and standards for the identification of abused children, protection of their privacy and their referement to the relevant authorities and institutions.

o MoH shall employ social workers and / or

psychologists in all health institutions that deal with children.

For the Ministry of Public Order (MoPO) o MoPO shall take immediate measures to establish a

referral and case management system of child abuse cases in all levels of police authority.

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o MoPO shall make possible the training of at least one person on how to deal with child abuse cases for every police station in Albania.

o MoPO shall improve its data collection system and

analysis on reported and followed up cases of child abuse by police stations and its staff.

o MoPO shall include in the training of new police

force modules on child abuse and how to deal with abused children.

o MoPO shall prepare and approve intrernal protocols

and standards for the identification of abused children, protection of their privacy and their referement to the relevant authorities and institutions.

o MoPO shall employ social workers and / or

psychologists in all police stations and police directorates.

For the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) o MoJ shall stimulate the preparation of necessary

legislation and seek the enforcement of existing laws for the protection of children’s rights, child welfare, especially by justice system.

o MoJ shall make possible the training of judges on

child abuse issues and shall approve standard procedures for the treatment of children during the legal process and protect their privacy.

o MoJ make available to all children during trials or

other legal procedures the presence of social workers and / or psychologists.

o MoJ shall accelerate the procedures for the

establishment of Juveniles Court in Albania. For the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (MoLSA) o MoLSA shall take measures for the implementation

of the priorities set in the new National Strategy for Children in Albania.

o MoLSA shall assist to establish and extend the network of services for the treatment and rehabilitation of abused children and their families.

o MoLSA shall establish standard procedures and Code

of Ethics for all its institutions responsible for child care and support.

o MoLSA shall recognise, license and support the services of civil society in Albania available for abused children.

For the Media o Media shall play an active role to overcome

stereotypes on child abuse and neglect. o Media shall present more positive examples on child

education and good parenthood. o Media shall make available space for the specialised

opinions on child care, education and treatment. o Media shall make possible training to journalists on

how to inform and present the issue of child abuse in printed and broadcasting media.

o Broadcasting media shall monitor the TV

programmes and discussions made available to children, in order to eliminate violent scenes and behaviour.

For NGO’s and Development Agencies o NGO’s and Agencies shall increase awareness on

child abuse and its consequences among the public at large and Government.

o NGO’s and Agencies shall play a more active role to

stimulate the improvement of polices and legislation for the prevention and prohibition of any form of abuse against children in Albania.

o NGO’s and Agencies shall extend the network of

their services aiming to reach the whole territory and shall approve Code of Ethics and standard procedures on child care, treatment and rehabilitation of children, data protection and staff behaviour.

o NGO’s and Agencies shall increase their cooperation

with the University of Social Sciences aiming to increase research, monitoring of the situation and services for children and their rights.

o Development Agencies shall increase their funding

for children, especially towards initiatives that deal with child abuse, marginalised children, child participation and children’s rights.

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11. LITERATURE AND CONTACTS

11.1 LITERATURE - How to protect children from violence – Training Manual for professionals. Prepared and published by Shelter for Battered Women and Young Girls, 2003. - Personal files of persons dealt by Shelter for Battered Women and Young Girls (1998-2004). - The maltreated child, Vincent J. Fontana, 1973. - Working with traumatized children, Kathryn Brohl, 1996. - Child abuse and neglect, Vernon R. Wiehe, 1992. - Social Work with children and their families, Christopher G. Petr, 1998. - Understanding child abuse and neglect, Cynthia Crosson – Tower, 1999.

11.2 CONTACTS

Children’s Human Rights Centre of Albania –(CRCA Office address: Pall. Shallvareve, Vila mbrapa Fushave te Tenisit, Kati III, Tirana / Albania Mail Address: Kutia Postare 1738, Tirana Albania Phone / Fax: + 355 4 242264 E-mail: crca@crca.org.al www.crca.org.al

Information and Research Centre for Children’s Rights in Albania – IRCCRA Office address: Pall. Shallvareve, Vila mbrapa Fushave te Tenisit, Kati III, Tirana / Albania Mail Address: Kutia Postare 1403, Tirana Albania Phone / Fax: + 355 4 242264 E-mail: irccra@crca.org.al www.crca.org.al/irccra.html

Child Legal Protection Office Office address: Pall. Shallvareve, Vila mbrapa Fushave te Tenisit, Kati III, Tirana / Albania Mail Address: Kutia Postare 1738, Tirana Albania Phone / Fax: + 355 4 242264 E-mail: crca@crca.org.al www.crca.org.al

Shelter for Battered Women and Young Girls E-mail: edlira1960@yahoo.com ela_kulluri@yahoo.com

Council of Ministers of the Republic Of Albania http://www.keshilliministrave.al/english/default.asp Phone: +355 4 229980 Fax: + 355 4 234818 E-mail: administrator@km.gov.al Ministry of Justice Address: Blvd. “Zog I”, Tirana / Albania Tel/Fax: + 355 4 259388 E-mail: Mail@justice.gov.al

Ministry of Public Order Address: Sheshi “Skenderbej”, No. 3, Tirana / Albania E-mail: mrp@mpo.gov.al http://www.mpo.gov.al/anglisht/mrp-ENGLISH.htm

General Directorate of Police Tel: + 355 4 364 953 E-mail: mrp@mpo.gov.al http://www.mpo.gov.al/policia.htm (Only in Albanian) Albanian Ombudsman Office Address: Bulevardi “Dëshmorët e Kombit”, Nr. 3, Tirana / Albania Tel: +355 4 22 97 85 Fax: +355 4 22 60 95 E-Mail: ap@avokatipopullit.gov.al http://www.avokatipopullit.gov.al/

INSTAT (Albanian Institute of Statistics) Address: Rr. "Lek Dukagjini", Nr 5, Tirana / ALBANIA Tel: (355) 4 222411 E-mail: botim_difuzion@instat.gov.al http://www.instat.gov.al/

Olof Palmes Internationella Centrum Sveavägen 68, plan 5 Box 836, 101 36 Stockholm Tel: 08 - 677 57 70 Fax: 08 - 677 57 71 E-mail: info@palmecenter.se http://www.palmecenter.se/

Defence for Children International Phone: (+41 22) 734 05 58 Fax: (+41 22) 740 11 45 E-mail: dci.is@bluewin.ch http://www.defence-for-children.org/

Albanian CRC Alternative Report English: http://www.crca.org.al/national%20reports.htm Alb: http://www.crca.org.al/shqip/Raportet%20kombetare.htm

Albanian Government CRC Report http://www.mfa.gov.al/english/sektoriraportimeve.asp http://www.mfa.gov.al/shqip/sektoriraportimit.asp (Alb)

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RESEARCHERS PROFILE Asoc. Prof. Dr. Edlira HAXHIYMERI Ms. Edlira Haxhiymeri is a professor of Social Work since 1993 and works at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tirana. She chairs the Department of Social Sciences since 1999. Recently she also held the position of vice-Rector of University of Tirana. She has specialised in several countries and universities, such as in Italy, Germany, France, England, Czech Republic, and USA. During the academic year 1997-1998 she worked as a pedagogue of Social Work at the University of Grand Valley in Michigan, USA. She has participated in several national and international conferences, writing papers on problems of women and children in Albania. She has published articles, reports and university texts-books for students of Social Work. She also has leaded projects implemented in the community for children and women. She is licensed as a trainer for gender problems and has worked for the training of specialists of the field in Albania and Kosova. She has contributed at several national and international studies. She has collaborated with and was a local expert for some international organizations, such as: World Bank, UNICEF, UNDP etc.

MA. Eliona KULLURI Ms. Eliona Kulluri since 1995 is a pedagogue of Social Work, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tirana. She teaches some special subjects of the curricula of Social Work. She has specialized for social work in different universities such as in Italy, Germany, Norway and USA. She is co-author of some university text-books for the students of social sciences, as well as of some studies in the social field and especially of domestic violence and trafficking issues. She has participated in several national and international conferences on problems of abused and trafficked children, girls and women. She has coordinated projects implemented in the community about groups at risk. Actually, she is active in programs of education of professionals in fields of public health, public administrate and judiciary system. She has contributed to the capacity building of specialists of services for abused and trafficked women, as well as children in some districts of Albania and Kosova.

MA. Altin HAZIZAJ Mr. Altin Hazizaj is one of the founders of the Children’s Human Rights Centre of Albania in 1997, and since 2002 is also the co-Director of CRCA. He has given an important contribution for the protection of children’s rights in Albania. He has a Master Degree on European Studies and is co-author of many research and reports on children’s and youth rights situation in Albania such as: ‘The Vicious Circle’, ‘Forgotten Children’, ‘Awaiting Trial’, ‘Youth Employment Opportunities in Albania’, ‘Albania: Alternative Report for the implementation of CRC’, ‘No One to Care’. He is also the Editor of the Review for Children and Youth Rights in Albania. Altin Hazizaj graduated, with excellent marks, Law School of University of Tirana in 1995. Since 1993 to present he has dedicated himself to the protection of children and human rights. He has been working and assisting several organisations in Albania and abroad such as: Albanian Helsinki Committee, Albanian Family Planning Association, Albanian Human Rights Group, Albanian Civil Society Foundation, ILO Turin, Save the Children, World Vision and UNICEF in Kosova. From 1993 to 1999 he has been working as journalist covering political and social issues for national daily papers such as: “Koha Jonë, “Gazeta Shqiptare”, “Dita Informacion”, “Populli PO”; “KLAN” Magazine, and National Television “KLAN”. Altin Hazizaj has prepared, written and presented many articles and papers that have been included in national and international publications and magazines on sensitive issues such as child abuse, juvenile justice, children in conflict with law, street children, child labour, child trafficking, children’s rights situation in Albania etc. He has been a member and a consultant of several policy of working groups of the Albanian Government for the preparation of National Strategy for Children in Albania, National Strategy for Youth in Albania, National Human Rights Treaty Reporting Committee etc.

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Copyright Notice The entire contents of this publication copyright © 2004, 2005

the Children's Human Rights Centre of Albania (CRCA) (CRCA - Tirana)

All readers are permitted and encouraged to use any part of this publication,

provided that proper attribution is given to the Children's Human Rights Centre of Albania. No part of this publication may be sold in any form without prior written

consent of the CRCA.

The opinions expressed in this book do not necessarily represent the policies or opinions of the CRCA or those of the donors.

Funded by the Olof Palme International Center.

Published by CRCA, Tirana

Published in Albania