The Republic of Albania is slowly emerging from a long and difficult transition to democracy after a long-standing authoritarian rule. Albania is a very ‘young’ nation, with 40 percent of its population below the age of 25, and approximately 750,000 children under the age of 14 out of a population of 3.2 million. Lack of education, late or no birth registration, discrimination of minorities (despite the constitutional recognition of their rights), domestic violence, traditional social norms that regard women as subordinate to men, practice of child marriage, among others, are key contributing factors, which increase the vulnerability of children to commercial sexual exploitation.
Amongst other identified priority actions, ECPAT International’s Country Monitoring Report urges the government to implement a national plan of action addressing all forms of commercial sexual exploitation of children, and adopt a national plan against child labour and economical exploitation of children.