By Elsa Rafaeli NGO “Kuçova Women under Development Focus” ANTI TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN

 The NGO “Women in Development Focus” is a non- profit organization created by a group of intellectual women in Kuçove in March The need to create a more suitable social inclusion of the women in society gave birth to our organization.  Our motto is: Freedom and progress does not come from silence. The vision without activity is just a dream. Acting without vision is passing time. Only the vision and activity can change the world.  Our mission is to develop and professionally qualify women and girls in Kuçove, especially those from minorities, using the existent intellectual potential of the members.

 Integration of women and girls, minorities and youth of urban and rural area in the social, economic and cultural life of community;  Offer services and training that improve the economic and social status of the women, girls and their families; OUR OBJECTIVES ARE:

 Education in protection of human and especially women rights;  Participate in the improvement of legislation for the protection of the rights of women, Youth and minorities, through close collaboration with national and local law making bodies, proposing and offering them veritable studies in the field.  We have collaborated with many donors in projects aimed to improve the active inclusion of women in society. Our partners are international like PNUD, SOROS, USAID (CAAHT), PBU (WFB), Peace Corps, FSSHSHC etc., or national like Gender Alliances for Development, CRCA (Center for the protection of Children Rights), AMARODROM (Roma association), Partners Albania etc. OUR OBJECTIVES ARE:

 The “Kuçova Women in the Focus of Development” Association, through the support of the USAID programs The Albanian Initiative: Coordinated Actions against Human Trafficking (CAAHT), has undertaken the initiative to implement the “Action against trafficking in humans in Kuçova” project. The purpose of the project was the prevention of the phenomenon of trafficking in humans in the area of Kuçova. It was after the 1997 events, the number of trafficked human was rising. The situation became desperate especially for women that were abducted, sold and forced to prostitute. They feared their exploiters might harm them or their families. Some of them got repatriated, safe from their protectors, but judged by the society.

 We have tried to raise awareness on the risk of human trafficking and aid women that were repatriated to gain a place in the society.  Our work consisted in offering consultancy and held group meetings of women, housewives, intellectuals, workers, Youth and repatriated trafficked girls. The meeting served to create the opportunity for the women to face directly the phenomena and its consequences so they can bond and make possible the inclusion in the society of the trafficked girls.

 Our Centre is visited by an attorney, a social worker and a health expert, mostly every week, but also in particular moments when the girls wanted to get informed towards problems that they may have nowadays. We also offer information through the variety of books related to trafficking in our library, a very useful source for women, girls or children.

 Due to these sessions 3 girls that have abandoned school, returned to study staying away from the streets. A successful case is the training of Mrs. B.G 27 years old, married and has 4 children. She came to our Centre and told us about, her husband and his parents that ill - treated her, she was given a psychological treatment, we have held some advice sessions meetings of these cases and we are helping her in the judicial case for family violence and abuse.  We have published a great number of posters, leaflets, brochures etc. They were very important because we achieved to inform the community not only about human trafficking, but also about what we are doing to prevent or decrease it. Even if it was a holiday time and people were trying to enjoy them, the number of women or girls who were interested in our activities and meetings was very high. Part of these women and girls were the ones who live and work abroad.

 There has been a satisfactory participation of women and girls with social problems, and students who attended the vocational courses during the period of the project implementation. Our center has also offered a lot of referring materials regarding human trafficking for students who wanted to use them during their learning process at school.  Another success of our organization was the recommendation given by the Educational Directory to organize extra curricular activities at different schools in Kuçova. The “Mesuesi” (”Teacher”) newspaper wrote about this collaboration on  We have also contacted with the owner of a sewing factory in Kuçova for the employment of three women who finished the sewing course at our organization.

 The victims number of trafficking mostly by the repatriated girls is falling.On the one side this is a positive sign that shows the other hand by the study the reduction of number is a consequence of refusal of the girls to come back. This happens after they return and withstand the same reality that obliged to get away.  Badly, now they must withstand with discrimination behavior of the community where they live  So, many of them get away again re-trafficking. To be recommended consolidation of efforts for re- integration, activity and legal assistance, psychological, medical according to the need. FOR NGO AND INSTITUTION LOCALITY LEVEL

We continue our work through: 1-The evidence and support of groups in trafficking risk offering the increase of professional capacity according the requests of market work 2-Education, conscientious, sensibility of public opinion with phenomenon causes and consequences

THANK YOU!