Hearing Session with “Friends of the Children” Parliamentary Group on protection of non-nationals unaccompanied and separated children arriving in Albania

The “Friends of the Children” Parliamentary Group held a hearing session in the presence of the Speaker of the Parliament, Ms. Lindita Nikolla, UNHCR Albania’s Representative, Mr. Pablo Zapata, UNICEF’s Albania Representative, Mr. Roberto de Bernardi, People’s Advocate, the Commissioner for Protection Against Discrimination, and other relevant actors.

The subject of this hearing session was the issues related to the protection of non-nationals unaccompanied and separated children arriving in Albania as part of mix migration flows.

Speaker Ms. Nikolla said that in recent years, there has been an increase in the flow of refugees, asylum seekers and children, in the context of migratory flows. The migratory panorama and the structure of flows is being modified by the latter, recording a change in the trend and dynamics of contemporary migratory waves, i.e., the predominance of flows of an economic nature. Worrying is the fact that some of them who seek to leave Albania use or fall into the networks of smugglers and traffickers of human beings.

In his speech, Mr. Zapata highlighted the work done by the government, but also stated that there is need for procedural changes and need for increasing the local government’s capacities to receive and treat children who enter the territory of Albania. He marked the fact that the situation is growing due to the situation in Ukraine.

In his word, Dr. de Bernardi valued the engagement of Albania and of the Parliament but highlighted the need for improvements in identification of non-national UASC, better access to social and other services and the harmonization of the legislation. He mentioned the need to increase institutional capacities for treating and caring for children who enter the territory of Albania.

The Albanian Parliamentarians, members the of “Friends of the Children”, highlighted the need for improvement of the legislations, procedures, institutional capacities and human resources for the treatment and protection of non-nationals unaccompanied and separated children arriving in Albania as part of mix migration flows. The MP’s requested to from UNICEF and UNHCR to provide proposals for the improvement of legal framework on the topic of non-national UASC.