President Osmani at the South-eastern European Democracy Summit: We see NATO as a guarantee for lasting security and peace in the region and beyond
The President of the Republic of Kosovo Vjosa Osman, in the framework of the South-eastern European Democracy Summit on the topic of: “War in Europe: Influence in the Balkans” organized by the US International Republican Institute and being held in Montenegro, delivered a speech today which focused on changing of the security architecture in Europe as a result of the war in Ukraine and the implications of these developments in the Western Balkans.
President Osmani in Montenegro for the South-eastern Europe Democracy Summit
The President of the Republic of Kosovo Vjosa Osmani travelled to Montenegro to participate at the South-eastern Europe Democracy Summit on the topic of: War in Europe: Influence in the Balkans, organized by the International Republican Institute in the USA.
President Osmani: Bujar Nishani was a model of an incomparable patriot, who represented Albania with great dignity and incessantly supported Kosovo
The President of the Republic of Kosovo Vjosa Osmani Sadriu conveyed her condolences to the Nishani family, on the occasion of the passing away of President Bujar Nishani.
President Osmani received the Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Kosovo, Mr. Nicholas Abbott
The President of the Republic of Kosovo Vjosa Osmani Sadriu received today at a meeting the Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Kosovo, Mr. Nicholas Abbott.
Institutional leaders in a meeting with the ambassadors of QUINT countries and the Head of the EU Office in Kosovo: Vetting, a precondition for the strengthening of the rule of law
The President of the Republic of Kosovo Vjosa Osmani-Sadriu, the Speaker of the Assembly Glauk Konjufca and Prime Minister Albin Kurti received the ambassadors of the QUINT countries and the Head of the EU Office in Kosovo to discuss the vetting process and the importance of the strengthening of the rule of law.
President Osmani received the credentials of the Ambassador of Malta Juliana Scerri Ferrante
The President of the Republic of Kosovo Vjosa Osmani, received today the credentials from the Ambassador of Malta to Kosovo, Juliana Scerri Ferrante.
President Osmani decrees Mrs. Irfete Spahiu with the rank of Major General and appoints her as KSF Inspector General
The President of the Republic of Kosovo Vjosa Osmani in a ceremony organized at the Presidency, pursuant to her constitutional and legal competencies, has promoted Brigadier General Irfete Spahiu to the rank of KSF Major General.
President's speech at the international conference on “Current trends in human trafficking in the Western Balkans” held in Tirana
Honourable President Meta, Dear participants, Ladies and gentlemen, Great to see you here in Tirana! President Meta, thank you for the invitation and especially for the fact that through this forum you are ensuring that we collectively focus on a problem that worries, damages and tarnishes societies, institutions and inter-institutional cooperation in the region and globally over the years. Trafficking in human beings is not just a serious crime and a serious violation of human dignity and rights – trafficking in human beings is a persistent and deeply troubling stain on our societies. Therefore, I welcome and praise this initiative of yours, which aims to coordinate our efforts toward combating and addressing the sources and effects of this phenomenon in the Western Balkans. Economic parameters, fragile security, destabilizing tendencies and social instability, as well as challenges to the rule of law, create favourable space for the development of trafficking in human beings in our region. Criminal networks use the lack of order and any gap in our cooperation and legal and institutional interaction to develop and increase their activity. The problem with trafficking in human beings lies in the fact that it is still considered by most of the society as a distant phenomenon that affects only certain groups of the society. While it is true that the most common victims of trafficking are children, girls and women and vulnerable sections of society, human trafficking does not recognize race, gender, age or border. Traffickers can commit this crime in any sector and environment, whether legal or illegal, including work in factories and restaurants, hotels and even mines and private homes. What is clear is that countless businesses closely linked to traffickers' networks benefit from the misery, lack of economic prospects and social inequalities faced by victims of trafficking. Traffickers are constantly getting rich at the expense of those who have been held hostage by poverty. In light of recent developments in Europe related to the war in Ukraine, our continent is increasingly exposed to situations where women and children fleeing war zones in Ukraine remain vulnerable in foreign countries. According to initial estimates, illegal sex trafficking of women and children in and around Ukraine has reportedly increased significantly. It is painful to see millions of women and children leave their homes in search of security in foreign lands and see some of them end up moving from the tragedy of war to the tragedy of trafficking. While forms of trafficking may be obvious, such as the case of sexual exploitation, including prostitution, slavery, domestic work, forcible deprivation of liberty, and related practices, trafficking can often be camouflaged behind other criminal offenses. Respectively, victims are often exploited in various ways and in other illegal activities, but these cases of trafficking in human beings are no longer investigated and registered as such. The presence of different and inconsistent systems for identifying trafficking cases in the region, inconsistencies in definitions and institutional constraints, but also almost exclusive reliance on the police and the exclusion of labor inspectors in case identification processes, directly and negatively affect the successful identification of trafficking cases. Addressing these issues should be the focus of our ongoing cooperation and coordination. An estimated 27 million people – women, men and children – are trafficked each year around the world. Women and girls have been the main victims of trafficking since 2008, when the European Union began collecting data on trafficking in human beings. Almost three-quarters of all victims in the EU are women and girls, who are mainly trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Children also continue to make up a significant number of victims in the EU and most of them are girls trafficked for sexual exploitation. In Kosovo, in more than 60% of trafficking cases the victims are under 18 years old. Whereas, it is precisely women and girls who are the main victims of this crime. But, both in Kosovo and in the region, statistics continue to be deficient. These statistics speak for themselves: the economic empowerment of women and girls is a key precondition for combating trafficking in human beings. In the US Department of State's Trafficking in Persons Report 2021 for Kosovo, Kosovo is ranked in the Second Tier (Tier 2). We have evidence of increased action towards the adoption of new standard operating procedures and the improvement of the work of basic prosecutions, but also towards the increase of resources for the protection of victims, including funding for NGO and state-run shelters against trafficking. Our ongoing efforts include taking concrete steps to prevent this phenomenon. This, among other things, through the establishment of state authorities whose mandate is precisely the prevention and awareness of citizens against these crimes. Kosovo has already drafted a new strategy against trafficking in human beings, which is expected to be approved soon. We have also established the National Authority against Trafficking in Human Beings, as well as the Commission for Compensation of Victims. However, the low sentences for traffickers and the imposition of insufficient sentences for convicted traffickers by judges prove that we still have work to do. What makes the situation even more troubling is the fact that trafficking networks are showing increasingly higher levels of professionalism and expertise as well as the sophistication of tools and methods. In this regard, the misuse of information technology by criminals for the recruitment and exploitation of victims of trafficking stands out. Faced with such a reality, Kosovo's membership in international organizations such as INTERPOL becomes an issue of particular importance. It should be clear to everyone, to countries that know us and those who have not yet made this decision, that Kosovo's membership in INTERPOL is not just a political ambition. It is a precondition for our social and institutional success in terms of combating trafficking in human beings and in general in the fight against international crime. Our membership
President's speech at the international conference on “Current trends in human trafficking in the Western Balkans” held in Tirana
Honourable President Meta, Dear participants, Ladies and gentlemen, Great to see you here in Tirana! President Meta, thank you for the invitation and especially for the fact that through this forum you are ensuring that we collectively focus on a problem that worries, damages and tarnishes societies, institutions and inter-institutional cooperation in the region and globally over the years. Trafficking in human beings is not just a serious crime and a serious violation of human dignity and rights – trafficking in human beings is a persistent and deeply troubling stain on our societies. Therefore, I welcome and praise this initiative of yours, which aims to coordinate our efforts toward combating and addressing the sources and effects of this phenomenon in the Western Balkans. Economic parameters, fragile security, destabilizing tendencies and social instability, as well as challenges to the rule of law, create favourable space for the development of trafficking in human beings in our region. Criminal networks use the lack of order and any gap in our cooperation and legal and institutional interaction to develop and increase their activity. The problem with trafficking in human beings lies in the fact that it is still considered by most of the society as a distant phenomenon that affects only certain groups of the society. While it is true that the most common victims of trafficking are children, girls and women and vulnerable sections of society, human trafficking does not recognize race, gender, age or border. Traffickers can commit this crime in any sector and environment, whether legal or illegal, including work in factories and restaurants, hotels and even mines and private homes. What is clear is that countless businesses closely linked to traffickers' networks benefit from the misery, lack of economic prospects and social inequalities faced by victims of trafficking. Traffickers are constantly getting rich at the expense of those who have been held hostage by poverty. In light of recent developments in Europe related to the war in Ukraine, our continent is increasingly exposed to situations where women and children fleeing war zones in Ukraine remain vulnerable in foreign countries. According to initial estimates, illegal sex trafficking of women and children in and around Ukraine has reportedly increased significantly. It is painful to see millions of women and children leave their homes in search of security in foreign lands and see some of them end up moving from the tragedy of war to the tragedy of trafficking. While forms of trafficking may be obvious, such as the case of sexual exploitation, including prostitution, slavery, domestic work, forcible deprivation of liberty, and related practices, trafficking can often be camouflaged behind other criminal offenses. Respectively, victims are often exploited in various ways and in other illegal activities, but these cases of trafficking in human beings are no longer investigated and registered as such. The presence of different and inconsistent systems for identifying trafficking cases in the region, inconsistencies in definitions and institutional constraints, but also almost exclusive reliance on the police and the exclusion of labor inspectors in case identification processes, directly and negatively affect the successful identification of trafficking cases. Addressing these issues should be the focus of our ongoing cooperation and coordination. An estimated 27 million people – women, men and children – are trafficked each year around the world. Women and girls have been the main victims of trafficking since 2008, when the European Union began collecting data on trafficking in human beings. Almost three-quarters of all victims in the EU are women and girls, who are mainly trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Children also continue to make up a significant number of victims in the EU and most of them are girls trafficked for sexual exploitation. In Kosovo, in more than 60% of trafficking cases the victims are under 18 years old. Whereas, it is precisely women and girls who are the main victims of this crime. But, both in Kosovo and in the region, statistics continue to be deficient. These statistics speak for themselves: the economic empowerment of women and girls is a key precondition for combating trafficking in human beings. In the US Department of State's Trafficking in Persons Report 2021 for Kosovo, Kosovo is ranked in the Second Tier (Tier 2). We have evidence of increased action towards the adoption of new standard operating procedures and the improvement of the work of basic prosecutions, but also towards the increase of resources for the protection of victims, including funding for NGO and state-run shelters against trafficking. Our ongoing efforts include taking concrete steps to prevent this phenomenon. This, among other things, through the establishment of state authorities whose mandate is precisely the prevention and awareness of citizens against these crimes. Kosovo has already drafted a new strategy against trafficking in human beings, which is expected to be approved soon. We have also established the National Authority against Trafficking in Human Beings, as well as the Commission for Compensation of Victims. However, the low sentences for traffickers and the imposition of insufficient sentences for convicted traffickers by judges prove that we still have work to do. What makes the situation even more troubling is the fact that trafficking networks are showing increasingly higher levels of professionalism and expertise as well as the sophistication of tools and methods. In this regard, the misuse of information technology by criminals for the recruitment and exploitation of victims of trafficking stands out. Faced with such a reality, Kosovo's membership in international organizations such as INTERPOL becomes an issue of particular importance. It should be clear to everyone, to countries that know us and those who have not yet made this decision, that Kosovo's membership in INTERPOL is not just a political ambition. It is a precondition for our social and institutional success in terms of combating trafficking in human beings and in general in the fight against international crime. Our membership
President Osmani participates at the international conference in Tirana on current trends in the trafficking of human beings
The President of the Republic of Kosovo Vjosa Osmani, at the invitation of President Ilir Meta, departed today for Albania where she will participate at an international conference on the subject of Current trends in the trafficking of human beings in the Western Balkans.