Albania has been a source of women and girls for international trafficking and a hub through which women from other countries have been taken to Western markets.

In 2001, Albania criminalized trafficking in women and children and adopted a national plan to fight human trafficking.

Society is highly patriarchal, and women are subjected to “matrimonial rape, conjugal violence, and sexual abuse of girls by their fathers.” Many men…still follow “Kanun,” an honor code…that “allows them to kidnap a woman they wish to marry.”

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