From the capital of Tirana to remote Albanian villages across the nation, The Albanian Initiative: Coordinated Action Against Human Trafficking (CAAHT) cast a wide net in its quest to prevent Albanian children and young adults from being trafficked. This six-year program (2004 to 2009) was made possible by the U.S. Agency for International Development and implemented by Creative Associates International, Inc. CAAHT galvanized the efforts of local government and civil society representatives to lead their communities in practical steps to decrease trafficking of Albania’s citizens and provide life-changing opportunities to victims and those at-risk. With the support of more than $2.6 million in grants dispersed to Albanian civil society organizations, the project helped open the only transit shelter for victims, provided life-changing services and counseling for more than 2,800 marginalized girls, boys and young women, and raised the awareness of teenagers and adults across the country about the realities of trafficking and the need to care for its victims through cross-sector cooperation.

Pooling Partners’ Experience to Improve Lives

By providing a forum for information exchange and collaboration across the country, CAAHT sought to reduce the number of persons who were trafficked in Albania and increase the number of survivors who were successfully reintegrated into their communities through social support systems and employment. Six years of CAAHT activities resulted in numerous achievements through the cooperative efforts of the project partners and staff including:

• More than 740 women and children who were victims of trafficking were provided protection and assistance to begin rebuilding their lives.
• Over 100 of these victims fully reintegrated into Albanian society.
• Almost 60,000 women, men, girls and boys were reached through trafficking awareness raising and prevention programs implemented by CAAHT grantees.
• 90% of the people reached with awareness raising and prevention activities remembered the message six months later.
• Improved exchange of information, techniques and strategies between different stakeholders, especially civil society and local government actors outside the capital and other major cities; increased knowledge in anti-trafficking through public awareness campaigns.
• Increased the availability of information on the responsibilities of the government actors at the central and local levels.
• An environment was created in which different anti-trafficking actors were able to meet each other and communicate.

Grants

Over $2.6 million in CAAHT grants were disbursed during the life of the program. These grants provided Albanian 22 civil society organizations across the country the means to bolster their own work in trafficking prevention and victim assistance, including reintegration, leading to better and geographically expanded services. As the program ended, most of these organizations had integrated counter-trafficking work as part of their on-going strategic plans.

Coordination

Over the six years of the program, close to 400 government and 500 civil society stakeholders participated in a variety of local and national CAAHT coordination events. CAAHT Annual Conferences in 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2009 gathered over 100 stakeholders each year to exchange information, lessons learned and to demonstrate a national consensus that recognizes human beings are trafficked in Albania and affirms the urgent need to take action against these crimes. The extensive knowledge of Albania's "anti-trafficking community" has been mobilized through national experts who presented practical models and principles for anti-trafficking work in panel and working group presentations. Evaluation feedback overwhelming revealed that conference participants especially valued the extensive agenda time dedicated to small- and working-group discussions , which enabled partners to share best practices and seek solutions together to overcome obstacles that hinder effective anti-trafficking work in Albania.

In 2007, the National Coalition of Anti-trafficking Shelters was created. This unique Coalition includes both government and civil society service providers that are part of the National Referral Mechanism for the identification and assistance of victims of trafficking. The member institutions include the National Reception Center of the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunity, Different and Equal in Tirana, Another Vision in Elbasan, and the Vatra Psychosocial Center in Vlora. The Coalition emerged from a technical working group of the CAAHT program.

More than 2,100 government and 210 civil society actors were trained in anti-trafficking and managements skills through conferences, technical training workshops and capacity building from CAAHT staff and local partners.

Access to information, such as reports from CAAHT and its partners, helped project grantees make their anti-trafficking programs more efficiently run and more responsive to victims’ needs. CAAHT program staff prepared annual reports describing the "The State of Efforts to Combat Trafficking of Persons in Albania". These reports provide an annual overview of the implementation of anti-trafficking policies and programs by the Government of Albanian and civil society. The 2007-2008 edition includes a chapter that analyzes trends in human trafficking based on individual victim of trafficking case data provided by the four NPO anti-trafficking shelters supported with CAAHT funds.

In September 2009, the CAAHT program published a Toolkit of Good Practices to Counter Human Trafficking that was delivered to 350 government and civil society stakeholders. The Toolkit presents the techniques and methodologies developed and used by the community of CAAHT government and civil society stakeholders that resulted in the achievements previously described.

Program videos

Click here to view a 25-minute video summarizing the key components and impact successes of the CAAHT program. Seven video-postcards highlighting the anti-trafficking work of local civil society organizations are also available on this YouTube page.

The CAAHT program concluded in September 2009. This website is being maintained by USAID to enable continued access to the many resources developed during the life of the program.

Together we can build sustainable approaches to combat trafficking of women and children in Albania!