PROTECTION
The government maintained its weak overall efforts to protect victims and penalization of victims continued to be widespread. The government did not develop or employ systematic procedures for the identification of victims and their subsequent referral to protective services.The government, particularly authorities from the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, Martyrs, and the Disabled (MOLSAMD) and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA), in practice referred victims to NGO-run shelters. Police lacked formal guidelines and funding to provide basic care (including water and food) to victims during the investigations. In some instances, police officers paid out-of-pocket for basic victim care.The government did not report the number of victims identified, but an international organization reported the government referred approximately 140 victims to it for assistance in 2014. During the reporting period, three of the four short-term trafficking shelters, owned by MOLSAMD but operated by an international organization, closed due to lack of funding. MOLSAMD assumed some of the operations of the fourth shelter, located in Kabul; an NGO handled the day-to-day operations while MOLSAMD registered the victims and provided security and other reintegration assistance. Similarly, NGOs operated women’s protection shelters in 20 provinces that provided protection, legal, and social services to female victims of violence, including victims of trafficking; MOWA registered victims and provided shelter regulations. At times, the government placed child victims in orphanages. There continued to be no shelters for adult male victims.
Despite a directive by the high commission in the previous reporting period to cease prosecution of trafficking victims, victims continued to be penalized for crimes committed as a result of being subjected to human trafficking. Authorities sometimes treated male and female victims as criminals simply for being unchaperoned or for having committed moral crimes. Officials continued to arrest, imprison, or otherwise punish female victims for prostitution or adultery, without regard to whether they had been subjected to forced prostitution, or for escaping from husbands who forced them into prostitution. NGOs reported placement of child trafficking victims in juvenile detention centers, sometimes for several years. Male child sex trafficking victims, including those subjected to bacha baazi, were in some cases referred to juvenile rehabilitation centers on criminal charges. Officials sometimes placed male and female victims who could not be accommodated in shelters in prisons.
The government encouraged victims to participate in investigations;

however, it did not provide adequate support, security, and protective services for victims to safely do so without supplemental trauma. For example, in one case, officials forced a child trafficking victim to testify in front of his alleged trafficker. Afghan law allows foreign victims to remain temporarily in Afghanistan for at least six months. There was no information the government forcibly deported any foreign trafficking victims in 2014.

PREVENTION
The government made modest improvements in preventing trafficking. The government continued to organize its anti-trafficking activities through its high commission, which met four times in 2014 and separately held 11 working level meetings; routine attendance by deputy ministers at the meetings improved. The high commission took some limited steps to implement activities set forth in its national anti-trafficking action plan, including the establishment of 32 provincial anti-trafficking commissions, of which 31 were functioning at the close of the reporting period. The Ministry of Education requested all schools spend the first five minutes of the school day on raising awareness about human trafficking and smuggling; there is no information confirming that this directive had been implemented. In collaboration with international organizations, MOLSAMD continued to sponsor television spots warning against trafficking.The AIHRC published a groundbreaking report on the practice of bacha baazi, which stated the practice was a kind of human trafficking and proposed recommendations for government action; in the course of gathering information for the report, the AIHRC held 14 public hearings attended by 1,050 people in 14 provinces. However, there was no progress reported toward fulfilling the goals of the action plan signed in January 2011 to combat the practice of bacha baazi by the Afghan National Security Forces.The government did not take steps to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts or forced labor.The government did not provide anti-trafficking training or guidance for its diplomatic personnel. Afghanistan acceded to the 2000 UN TIP Protocol in August 2014.

ALBANIA:  Tier 2 
Albania is a source and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor. Albanian women and children are primarily subjected to sex trafficking within Albania, in neighboring countries (Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Greece), and in other European countries. Albanian and some foreign victims are subjected to forced labor in Albania, particularly in the tourism industry. An increasing number of Albanian children, often of Romani or Balkan Egyptian ethnicity, are subjected to forced begging and other forms of compelled labor in Albania and neighboring countries (Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Montenegro). Some Albanian girls are subjected to sex trafficking or forced labor following arranged marriages. Some foreign women from European countries, including Ukraine, Russia, the United Kingdom, and Norway, are subjected to sex trafficking in Albania. An increasing number of Middle Eastern and African irregular migrants, particularly Syrians, transit Albania to reach Western Europe and are vulnerable to trafficking, though police have yet to identify any as trafficking victims. Corruption and high rates of turnover within the police force inhibit law enforcement action to address trafficking. Official complicity in trafficking crimes remains a significant concern. A sitting member of Parliament had prior convictions for trafficking-related crimes.

The Government of Albania does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. The government significantly improved law enforcement efforts by prosecuting and convicting more traffickers than in 2013, including some traffickers who forced children to beg.The government and NGOs identified more victims, and the government increased funding to the state-run shelter for trafficking victims. Nevertheless, psychological, medical, and reintegration services at the state-run shelter were inadequate. Government funding to NGO shelters was insufficient, and the only shelter providing specialized services for child trafficking victims closed for several months due to a lack of funds; however, in March 2015, the government allocated funding for staff salaries at two NGO shelters.The government continued to investigate and punish victims for unlawful acts committed as a result of their exploitation.