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https://doi.org/10.29013/ESR-19-9.10-90-94
Mersinaj Luljeta, MSc in Law, European University of Tirana, National Advocacy Chamber of Vlore, Lawyer E- mail: [email protected]
NATIONAL LEGISLATION AGAINST CHILD ABUSE IN ALBANIA
Abstract. Child abuse is manifested in various forms, such as: physical and emotional abuse, neglecting and sexual abuse. The child abuse does not know any limit, but the children asking help come mainly from poor and risked strata of the society.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.
Keywords: Child Abuse, Albanian Family, Phenomen, Model of Parenthood.
1. Introduction Different types of child abuse and neglect have
Child maltreatment is a significant public health different features. It is important to distinguish be-
problem, that has a serious impact on the health on well being of children. It is not a new phenomen to the modern society. The Roman Law gave the father the absolute right on his child. This right was understood as a right to act an child by every means. Dealing with the problem of child abuse as a social problem has not a long history in Albania. This problem started to be discussed when the civil movement begun to take breathe, as a result of political changes taking place
in the country. Child abuse has been addressed by
numerous stakeholders including the Government, ministries, public institutions and nongovernmental organizations, which not only organized awareness rising campaigns on the defence of children rights, victims of abuse, but also offered the first specialized psycho-social services and legal support.
2. Types of Child Abuse and Neglect
The World Health Organization defines child abuse and neglect as [16]: "All forms of physical and/or emotional ill treatment, sexual abuse, neglect or negligent treatment or commercial or other exploitation, resulting in actual or potential harm to the child's health, survival, development or dignity in the context of a relationship of responsibility, trust or power".
tween what are commonly regarded as the five main subtypes of child abuse and neglect:
Physichal abuse [16] consist in force against a child that results in/or has a high likelihood of resulting in harm for the child's health, survival, development or dignity. This includes hitting, beating, kicking, shaking, biting, strangling, scalding, burning, poisoning and suffocating. Much physical violence against children in the home is inflicted with the object of punishing.
Sexual abuse [16] consist in the involvement of a child in sexual activity that he or she does not fully comprehend, is unable to give informed consent to, or for which the child is not developmentally prepared, or else that violates the laws or social taboos of society. Children can be sexually abused by both adults and other children who are by virtue of their age or stage of development in a position of responsibility, trust or power over the victim. There is a diversity of perpetrator characteristics, relationships and contexts within which child sexual abuse occurs as: adult abusers with no familiar relationiship to the child, adult abusers who are family members of the child, adult abusers who are in a position of power or
authority over the child, sexual abuse that is perpetrated by children and young people, sibling sexual abuse, online child sexual abuse, commercial child sexual explotation.
Emotional abuse [16] is also sometimes called 'emotional maltreatment', 'psychological maltreatment' and 'psychological abuse'. Emotional abuse refers to a parent or caregiver's inappropriate verbal or symbolic acts towards a child and/or a pattern of failure over time to provide a child with adequate non physical nurturing and emotional availability [16]. It takes five main behavioural forms: rejecting, isolating, terrorizing, ignoring, corrupting.
Neglect includes both isolated incidents, as well as a pattern of failure over time on the part of a parent or other family member to provide for the development and wellbeing of the child where the parent is in a position to do so in one or more of the following areas: health, education, emotional development, nutrition, shelter and safe living conditions.
Exposure to family violence consist on forcing a child or young person to live in an environment where a primary caregiver experiences sustained violence is in and of itself emotional and psychological abuse. Children and young people who are forced to live with violence are at increased risk of experiencing physical and sexual abuse. These children and young people tend to experience significant disruptions in their psychosocial wellbeing, often exhibiting a similar pattern of symptoms to other abused or neglected children.
3. Child Abuse and Neglect Statistics in Albania
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.
The culture ofviolence against children is largely accepted in the Albanian family, school, and society [9]. Several studies confirm this fact and demonstrate that physical and psychological violence are accepted forms of discipline both in the family and at school. The first study on child abuse in Albania shows that violence is so widespread in Albania that the distinction between upbringing and the use of violence is often blurred in the minds of the respondents [17]. Results of this study confer that only 23.6% of the 643 adults interviewed consider slapping a child as a form of abuse.
A recent study on parents beliefs on corporal punishment of children further shows that 76% of the 195 parents and 57% of the 92 teachers interviewed think that it is acceptable to slap children, but only with a few light slaps [8]. Another report on parents and teachers attitudes towards childrens physical punishment shows that 74.8% of parents and 68.5% of teachers agree with the notion that children learn to respect their caregivers from smacking.
Additionally, physical punishment is seen not only as acceptable but also as needed to educate children. Indeed, 27.6% and 34.3% of teachers included in this study think that severe treatment of children by their parents prepares them to deal with difficult situations later in life. Psychological violence is considered to be less harmful than physical abuse; therefore, the former is believed to be more acceptable and useful for children's education. Moreover, adults also have limited and vague understanding of the negative consequences of physical and psychological violence.
Among children, 41.5% and 6%, respectively, have been abused physically or sexually at least once during their childhood [18]. One in five children in school report that they are subject to verbal bullying. Exposure
to cyber-violence and sexual abuse is also high, documented by a 2017 survey [11] with children of age 13-18 years pointing out that bullying, password theft and unintentional pornography viewings happen every day to 45% of children participating in the survey, while 47% of children were contacted through the Internet by unknown adults. UNICEF latest studies showed that 7.75% of Albanian children of age 5-17 years are engaged in some type of economic activity
[12] and 2.000-2.500 children are connected to the
street by living or working, or both [10]. As Albania lacks a comprehensive integrated national child protection system interventions in this area are driven by nongovernmental organizations and are mostly inefficient, overlapping, issue-based and fragmented [19]. High expectations are associated with Albania's political aspirations to strengthen the rule oflaw and (child) rights protection as critical milestones along the path to Europe membership.
4. National Legislation Against Child Abuse in Albania
Albania has ratified, since the 1990s, a number of important international human rights instruments including those on children's rights. The Albanian legal framework on protection of children from sexual abuse is composed of constitutional of 1998 provisions, ratification of the international instruments, domestic law, sub-legal acts and administrative procedures. The Constitution of the Republic ofAlbania deals with the right of the child in its Article 54 and provides, among others the principle that every child has the right to be protected from violence, ill-treatment and exploitation which may damage his/her health, moral or endanger his/her life and normal development [20].
Law no. 18/2017 dated 23.02.2017 "On the rights and protection of children" is the organic law which provides the overall principles, measures, standards of protection and the institutional framework on childrens rights. It should be immediately pointed out that this recently approved law, which repeals and replaces the 2010 law regulating the
same matter, constitutes a significant improvement of the Albanian legislation on this matter. This is due to the fact that it has introduced and regulated in a detailed and systematic way the principles, standards and measures provided for in the Lanzarote Convention and in the other above mentioned international instruments. Having established that, child [2] "is considered every person under the age of18 and having established the well-known principle of the best interest of the child". Law 18/2017 provides for:
• Preventive measures;
• Assistance and support measures;
• Coordination measures;
• Protection measures.
The Criminal Code 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. As a general remark it can be noted that the Criminal Code [3] provides for high penalties for sexual abuse offences consisting in multiple years of imprisonment. At least some of them are consistently higher than the minimum penalties provided for similar offences by Directive 2011/92/EU.
An important development in the Albanian childrens rights legislation is the approval in March 2017 of the Code of Criminal Justice for Minors which will enter into force on January 1, 2018. It is for the first time that Albania develops a full set of norms to regulate the position of children within the criminal justice sector and to approve specific rules and procedures needed to treat this delicate category. It is mainly focused on regulating aspects of the criminal liability of children who commit criminal offences but it provides also important dispositions in relation to children victims of crimes, including sexual abuse [3]. In fact, it regulates issues such as: the position of the child victim during investigation and prosecution; interviews with children; protection measures throughout the process in order not to
aggravate their trauma; protection of personal data of child victims and similar issues.
The Criminal Procedure Code [4], 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 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 the 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 [5].
5. Conclusion
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. It 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 and community. Although there is a strong legal framework to protect children, stricter enforcement is needed of the ban on corporal punishment. They acknowledged the need for better governance frameworks and capacity building of frontline workers in the health, social, justice and education sectors to strengthen mandatory reporting, information sharing and a multisectoral response in Albania.The children are our future, they should not be violated or abused, please Stop Violence!
References:
1. Constitution of the Republic of Albania.
2. Criminal Code ofAlbania. Articles: 100, 101,106, 107, 108.
3. Code of criminal justice for minors ofAlbania. Articles 17, 18, 20, 21, 25, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 37, 41, 136.
4. Criminal Procedure Code of Albania.
5. Family Code ofAlbania Articles 215, 223, 228.
6. Law no. 18/2017 dated 23.02.2017 "On the rights and protection of children".
7. Save the Children, Albania. Violence against children in schools, - Tirana, Albania. 2007.
8. Kamani P., Mato E., & Cangonji E. The child abuse phenomenon in the Albanian society. - Tirana, Albania. 1997.
9. Tamo A., & Karaj Th. Violence against Children in Albania. - Tirana, Albania. 2006.
10. UNICEF (2014) National study on children in street situations. URL:http://www.unicef.org/albania/ NationalStudy-childen_in_street_situation-June2014.pdf
11. World Vision. A study into child online safety in Albania. - Tirana. 2015. The report can be accessed at: URL:http://www.wvi.org/sites/default/files/Internet%20Safety%200K.pdf
12. INSTAT & ILO. Working children in the Republic ofAlbania. 2013.
13. Lai A. Future of an Integrated Child Protection System in Albania. - Tirana. 2016.
14. Bromfield L. M. Chronic child maltreatment in an Australian statutory child protection sample. 2005.
15. Garbarino J., Guttman E., & SeeleyJ. W. The psychologically battered child: Strategies for identification, assessment, and intervention. 1986.
16. World Health Organization. 2006.- 9 p. Preventing child maltreatment: A guide to talking action and generating evidence. Geneva: WHO. Retried from URL:http://www.who.int/violence_injury_preven-tion/publiations/violence/child_maltreatment/en/
17. Save the Children, Albania (2007). Violence against children in schools. Tirana, Albania: Save the Children in Albania. Sekretariati Teknik per Femijet. (2009). Raporti per zbatimin e objektivave te strategjise kombetare per femijet. - Tirana, Albania.
18. Qirjako G. et al. Community survey on prevalence of adverse childhood experiences in Albania. WHO. 2013.
19. Lai A. Future of an Integrated Child Protection System in Albania. - Tirana: Council of Europe. 2016.
20. Article 54 (3), of the Constitution of the Republic ofAlbania.
21. Article 3 (4), Law no. 18/2017 dated 23.02.2017. "On the rights and protection of children".
