Every Child Matters? Ambivalences and Convergences in Migration Management and Child Protection in Albania

ABSTRACT

Research on the intersection between migration management and child protection is limited and, yet, contradictions between these two domains and ambivalence in the area of child migrants’ rights across the developed world have already been highlighted. Based on fieldwork with policymakers and service providers in Albania, a middle-to-high income country with a significant history of emigration, this paper aims to shed light on the interaction of these institutional and policy domains and the impact they have on professional practice. The State’s impact on migrant children’s rights at the domestic level is affected by the resourcefulness of its system of social and child protection. This key factor appears to affect the work of professionals on the ground and ultimately mean a variety of categories of child migrants have limited access to child protection services. Professional practice in this context highlights the need to include material dimensions—the resources needed to realise child protection on the ground—in its definition, and to consider the impact of multi-scalar influences on service providers’ work. The two domains of migration management and child protection appear to converge in the case of unaccompanied minors (UAMs). In turn, stateless, returned migrant children and those from very disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds are overlooked, giving rise to unequal access to state support. Nonetheless, an overall disjuncture appears in the context of transnational child protection, due to the rigid focus on nationality as a precondition for state support.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration management
• child protection
• child migration
• professional practice
• Albania

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Zana Vathi is Reader in Social Sciences at Edge Hill University, UK. She is the author of Migrating and Settling in a Mobile World (Springer, 2015) and the editor of Return Migration and Psychosocial Wellbeing: Discourses, Policy-Making and Outcomes for Migrants and their Families (Routledge, 2017). She has published numerous articles, working papers and research reports in the field of international migration in Europe, cross-generational comparative research, migration policies, migrant trajectories and psychological wellbeing. She serves as an international expert for organizations such as the IOM, World Bank, Terre des Hommes and the European Commission.

Elizabeth Richards is a Lecturer in Childhood and Youth and Early Childhood Studies at Edge Hill University, UK. She specializes in Law and Social Policy for Childhood and Youth and in Early Childhood Studies. With a particular interest in social policy, her research includes exploration of the ethics of policy and guidance relating to sex/sexuality education for children of primary school age and critical discourse analysis of the citizenship rights of children and young people in the context of the current political climate.

Notes

1 https://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/jha/117555.pdf.

2 http://www.infocip.org/al/?p=6833.

3 http://www.punetebrendshme.gov.al/files/documents_files/13-11-14-04-05-08ligji_per_te_Huajt.pdf.

4 https://www.parlament.al/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2015/10/ligj_nr_121_dt_18_9_2014_19228_11.pdf.

5 https://childhub.org/en/system/tdf/library/attachments/agjenda-kombetare-per-te-drejtat-e-femijeve_0.pdf?file=1&type=node&id=27392.

6 Interview with Ms Denada Seferi, MoSWY.

7 Interview with Ms Denada Seferi, MoSWY.

8 Interview with trafficking specialists, MoIA.

9 Gjirokastra is a prominent town in Southern Albania. The region where it is located borders Greece.

10 Interview with Ms Esmeralda Toska, Directory of Border Police, MoIA.

11 ARSIS – Association for the Social Support of Youth is a non-oovernmental organisation, specialising in the social support of youth that are in difficulty or danger and in the advocacy of their rights. http://www.arsis.gr/en/home/.

12 Representative of organisation ‘Woman in Development’ (Gruaja ne Zhvillim) Shkodra.

13 Interview with Ms Ina Verzivolli, NAPCR.

14 Interview with the representative of the Directory of Health, Shkoder.

15 Shkoder is the biggest town in the north of Albania.

16 Interview with the represenative of the Child Protection Unit, Shkoder.

17 Interview with Valbona Buzi, Regional Social Services, Fier.

18 Interview with Ms. Alma Mele, Directory for Asylum, Tirana.

19 Interview with Mr. Igli Totozani, Albania’s Ombudsman.

20 For example, in Shkodra region organisations linked to the Catholic Church such as Woman to Woman, Woman in Development, Acli-Ipsia, SOS Village, Madonnina del Grappa, Papa Giovani.

21 The Order has been in place since December 2014.

22 Albanian idiom to explain a state of limbo; Valbona Buzi, Regional Social Service.

23 Valbona Buzi, Regional Social Services, Fier.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Terre des Hommes.