Baptists helping Albanian Government stamp out people trafficking

Officials at the Embassy of Albania have expressed their thanks to British Baptists for the work they are doing together with the Albanian Government to stamp out people trafficking.

BMS World Mission's director for mission David Kerrigan handed over an 11,000-strong petition to the Counsellor to the Albanian Ambassador, Myzafer Alushi, during a 20-minute meeting on Wednesday.

He stressed that the petition was not intended to be a protest but rather an expression of thanks and encouragement for the steps that the Albanian Government has already taken to end the trafficking of women, children and men in Albania, a major country of origin.

"We are grateful to the Albanian Government for taking this issue so seriously", explained Mr Kerrigan.

The 11,000 signatures on the petition belong to supporters of BMS' In Transit campaign, a six-month postcard campaign in 2007 urging Baptists across the UK to declare their opposition to human trafficking and support evangelical Christians in Albania who are actively lobbying their government to create more effective legislation.

Mr Alushi praised the work of the church in helping the Albanian Government to overcome the country's trafficking problem.

"The Church plays an important role and I want to thank you for what you are doing. Your contribution is very much evaluated by the Albanian government and we hope that together we will stop the shameful trafficking problem," he said.

He added, "The issue is being tackled very carefully by our government and with full support of the UK and other governments in Europe. We have established successful centres to help trafficked women and the care by the government is certainly not lacking. We are doing what we can with limited resources, with support from other countries."

Mr Kerrigan was joined at the meeting by BMS World Mission's representative for counter-trafficking work, Hannah Wilson.

She told Mr Alushi of some of the work that she and other Christians in Albania are doing in cooperation with the government to help victims and raise awareness of human trafficking, before handing Mr Alushi a copy in Albanian of a human trafficking booklet produced by the European Baptist Federation for church leaders.

Ms Wilson also announced in the meeting that the Albania's Vice Minister of the Interior, Iva Zajmi, had granted one of the In Transit campaign's policy asks for church representation on the 12 regional government anti-trafficking committees in Albania.