WEAK STATE SUPPORT FOR VICTIMS OF TRAFFICKING AND FORCED CHILD MARRIAGES: LEFT IN THE LURCH

A BOY AND A GIRL, VICTIMS OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING, DID NOT RECEIVE ADEQUATE SYSTEM SUPPORT AFTER THEY WERE RESCUED. THIS IS THE COMMON FATE OF MANY OTHER VICTIMS TOO

"The consequences of the horrors that my children survived in Kosovo are still visible today. This has marked them for life," the mother of the girl, who was separated from her at the age of seven, told the Center for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIN-CG). In a house disconnected from the electricity supply, a mother recalls years of agony during which she only had an inkling of what two of her seven children were going through. Next to her, a healthy-looking fourteen-year-old girl and a smiling twelve-year-old boy, who looks like he's only nine, are sitting.
The father and grandfather took the children from Montenegro to Kosovo seven years ago without the mother's permission. There, the girl was first forced to work, and when she was only 11 years old, she was sold and married to a twenty-year-old man. She suffered brutal sexual and physical abuse.
"When they married me, they falsified my documents and lied that I was 18. I was baffled - I didn't even know who I was anymore. I started to believe that I have grown up that much", she told CIN-CG journalists in the presence of her mother.
Her brother, who was only five years old when he came to Kosovo, was forced by his father and grandfather to beg and do other forms of illegal child labour. The father, a heroin addict, forced his son to consume drugs, which once almost had a fatal outcome.
"Fortunately, my son was found by the Kosovo policemen in a hut. He was overdosed, unconscious, and wrapped in a blanket... They probably threw him there because they wanted to get rid of his body, thinking he was dead," the mother, a victim of an arranged marriage herself, says. She was forced to marry a man who later destroyed her children's lives.
The girl and her brother were lucky because they were returned to their mother. Their case has been processed. However, many similar stories remain untold, while children remain trapped.
"Although in Montenegro, arranged child marriage in the RE population is perceived as a part of the tradition, it is human trafficking, which includes the sexual exploitation of minors and physical and mental abuse. It is a serious crime, which leaves a severe trauma", Fana Delija, executive director of the Center for Roma Initiatives (CRI), the non-governmental organization that made the most significant contribution to saving these children, explains to CIN-CG.
Although finally safe, the girl and boy did not receive the necessary institutional support. Today, they are mostly left to the support of their mother, who lives in poverty and cannot provide them with essential psychological and health care. In developed societies, children who are victims of human trafficking receive vital assistance from the state, a necessary prerequisite for everyday life.
In May 2020, the Centre for Social Work Nikšić (CSW), as the legal guardian, placed these children in the Home in Bijela, which is not a licensed shelter for victims of trafficking in human beings. The only licensed shelter is a shelter within the NGO Institute for Social and Educational Policy, founded in 2019.
"My brother, a few friends, and I were afraid of a guardian in the Children's Home Mladost in Bijela. The days when she was at work were horrible. She made the two of us clean the toilets and go to bed earlier - without hanging out with the other children. But all the other workers were good to us", the girl says.
The Children's Home Mladost denies these claims for CIN-CG. "In this case, no elements of abuse were established, and the employee was transferred to another workplace, which was an adequate response to the allegations of the children and their subjective experience while respecting their best interests." They also stated that "no physical and psychological signs of possible violence were ever detected in children".
CSW Niksic did not answer CIN-CG's question based on what criteria the children were placed in the shelter in Bijela, given that it did not have the corresponding license.
The children spent about 15 months in the Children's Home Mladost, and during that time, as the authorities of that institution claim, they were provided with intensive and professional support. "We can be proud that children of various ethnic groups are residents of the Home. They are all treated equally, and their rights are equally respected", the Children's Home Mladost stated for CIN-CG.
The Home in Bijela has been under public scrutiny several times due to cases of physical and mental violence against residents by employees, which have never been proven. Last year's report of the institution of the Protector of Human Rights and Freedoms warned that in the House, "there are serious problems in the functioning of the institution and the provision of protection services for children without parental care".
The sister and brother now attend lower classes than their peers. The fourteen-year-old girl is in the fifth grade, while her twelve-year-old brother is in the second.
Although she likes to learn and wants to be a translator, she already speaks five languages; it bothers her that she attends classes with much younger children. "Others notice that I am not like them and mock me. I am ashamed and find reasons not to go to school", she told CIN-CG.
The support and understanding of her family mean a lot to her, but she would also like to make friends who could understand and accept her. The boy also has a socialization problem.
"There is a high risk of a girl dropping out of school due to unsatisfactory relationships with her peers, lack of motivation or shame," Jovana Knežević, a psychologist at the CRI, who has provided psychological support to the minor, told CIN-CG. CRI is in communication with the school administration, and they are looking for solutions. "With part-time education, we would try to ensure that she finishes primary school. We will also provide a mentor for learning support", Knežević says.
Victims of human trafficking, sexual abuse and exploitation need continuous psychotherapeutic treatment. "It helps them to stop blaming themselves for being victims as well as to regain their self-esteem and self-confidence," Dijana Popović Gavranović, social worker and head of the Professional Service of the Supreme State Prosecutor's Office, explains to CIN-CG. "The act of sexual abuse and exploitation causes a feeling of humiliation, shame, and guilt, and the feeling of guilt intensifies when the violence occurs in the circle of trusted persons. All this leads to lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem".

The most common victims of human trafficking are children and women from the RE population

For crimes against children, the father was not punished as he should have been, says the mother in an interview with CIN-CG. "My ex-husband got a short prison sentence in Kosovo for human trafficking, but, as we heard, he is already at liberty and now lives there. The grandfather was a 'mastermind' of selling and smuggling across the border and falsification of documents. He got 5,000 for selling my daughter and was never jailed for his crimes. He has been on the run since 2020," the mother explains.
"Grandfather is my biggest torturer and evildoer. I loved him, and I did not expect that he could do something like that to me", the girl says.
According to the Basic Court in Podgorica data, from 2015 to 2021, three verdicts were handed down for the criminal offence of extra-marital communities with minors. There are no reliable statistics on how many arranged marriages there are in Montenegro. It is known, however, that this is a serious issue, which often remains hidden in closed communities, where children are sold from a few hundred to several tens of thousands of euros.
"The most common victims of human trafficking in Montenegro are children and women from the Roma and Egyptian (RE) population," Marko Brajović, an inspector in the crime sector, told CIN-CG.
In 2015 and 2016, there were no indictments for the criminal offence of human trafficking in the Higher State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica. From 2017 to 2022, a total of 14 charges were brought.
According to the data CIN-CG received from the High State Court, two final judgments were pronounced in 2019. Two persons were punished - one was sentenced to 17 and the other 15 years in prison. In 2020, another final decision was passed, and two processes from that year are still being processed. In 2021, there was also one final verdict, and the defendant was sentenced to two years in prison. A plea agreement was also concluded. Three trials for human trafficking from the same year are still ongoing. Since the beginning of this year, there have been no verdicts for this crime.
According to the GRETA's report on human trafficking in Montenegro (2021), the experts of the Council of Europe for the fight against human trafficking state that none of the victims was awarded compensation from the perpetrator, and there were no human trafficking cases in which the defendant's property was seized or confiscated.

Child marriage in Montenegro - without a legal framework

Montenegrin legislation, as stated in the study The Prevention of Child Marriage in Montenegro, which CRI published with the support of UNICEF, does not explicitly define child marriage. "Nevertheless, there is an implicit definition - sets the age limit for marriage at 18, allowing, by way of exception, a child aged 16 to 18 to get married with the permission of the court, in line with the Law on non-contentious proceedings", it is stated in that study.
The Criminal Code of Montenegro stipulates that a parent, adoptive parent, or guardian who enables a minor to live in an extra-marital union with another person or instigates them into it shall be punished by an imprisonment sentence of three months to three years.
If the act was committed by force, threat or out of self-interest, the perpetrators might be sentenced to imprisonment from six months to five years. If an offence was committed by force, threat, or out of self-interest, the offender shall be punished by an imprisonment sentence of six months to five years. It is further stated that if such a marriage is concluded, the prosecution shall not be undertaken, and if it was launched, it shall be discontinued.
The judicial practice for this criminal offence is such, as CIN-CG lawyer Marko Ivanović points out, that an extra-marital union is a union that has lasted for 20 days and not at least three years as prescribed by the Family Law. "If it were otherwise, a criminal offence against a minor aged 15, 16, or 17 would not be possible to be taken into account because they would have become legal adults before the expiry of three years", Ivanović emphasizes.

Trafficking in human beings has a precise gender dimension.

The Analysis of Montenegrin Case Law on Trafficking in Human Beings for 2021, prepared by the Supreme Court, states that most defendants are men. Of the 48 defendants, 42 are male. It is the same regarding convicts - men accounted for 85% of all individuals convicted of human trafficking.
The figure shows the precise gender dimension of trafficking in human beings. Of the 39 victims identified in the judgments, 26 were female, and 13 were male.
Criminal proceedings are also long. On average, they last almost three years.
The 2021 Report of the European Commission on Montenegro stated that the Team in charge of the identification, referral, and initial assistance to victims registered 52 of them. Among them were 21 women and ten children. All the children were from Roma and Egyptian communities and were victims of forced beggary or forced marriage.
According to the Report, Montenegro "needs to improve its capacity to detect largescale trafficking networks, particularly for sexual exploitation, as well as to provide a more robust criminal justice response."

State Department: Government fails to meet minimum standards

The State Department's 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report states that "the Government of Montenegro does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, but is making significant efforts to do so."
"Shelter's staff lacked experience in victim assistance, particularly victim confidentiality; the shelter often posted photos of victims on social media with censored faces, but other characteristics such as clothes and location are easily identifiable," the report states.
It is also emphasized that "Police refused to refer a victim to support services due to pandemic mitigation measures and required the victim to quarantine for 28 days, during which the victim faced domestic violence."
The GRETA report underlines the importance of a specialized child psychologist in the case of trafficked children and that every victim must have a clinical assessment by an experienced clinical psychologist.
On a global level, human trafficking is one of the biggest problems. In the last 13 years, according to the data of the international organization of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), around 225 thousand victims of human trafficking have been identified. Of these, 49 per cent were women, 21 per cent were men, while 30 per cent were children (23 per cent were girls). Women and girls were often identified as victims of sexual exploitation, and men and boys as victims of labour exploitation.
In the 2017 Global Estimates of Modern Slavery by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Walk Free Foundation, it is stated that there were an average of 40.3 million victims of modern slavery per day in 2016, of which 24.9 million were forced to work against their will under threat, and 15.4 living in a forced marriage. This document is a thorough study of modern slavery, which includes interviews with over 70,000 people from around the world and numerous records.
According to the Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking for the period from 2019 to 2024, Montenegro intends to improve the system of prevention, identification, protection, assistance, and monitoring of victims of trafficking in human beings by 2024, with a particular focus on children.
"I want my children to get an education and get on with life. It is difficult when there is no real help from the state in that process", says the mother from the beginning of our story. But, by all accounts, there is a long way to recovery and inclusion not only of her children but of many other victims whose fate is unknown.

Shortage of child psychiatrists

After the hearing before the state prosecutor's office, child victims of trafficking are referred for psychological and psychiatric support.
"Not all cities in Montenegro have the possibility of this kind of support," Dijana Popović Gavranović, social worker and head of the Professional Service of the Supreme State Prosecutor's Office, told CIN-CG.
"We refer children, victims of trafficking, to the Center for Autism, Developmental Disorders and Child Psychiatry in Podgorica and the children's clinic at the Special Hospital for Psychiatry in Dobrota, given that a total of three psychiatrists for children and adolescents now practice in the institutions mentioned above. In other areas, there is only the possibility of psychological support within the existing counselling centres in community health centres, where the work is not focused on children, and there is no psychiatrist for children and adolescents", she explained.
"State prosecutors should take all measures to reduce the number of youth interrogations as vulnerable persons".
She adds that communication between the victim and the perpetrator of the crime should be limited, especially in cases of sexual exploitation, abuse, and violence.

Andrea Jelić
Đurđa Radulović