Rape and Domestic Violence: Rape, including spousal rape, is a crime. Penalties for rape and sexual assault depend on the age of the victim. For rape of an adult, the penalty is three to 10 years in prison. The law includes provisions on sexual assault and criminalizes spousal rape. The government did not enforce the law effectively, and authorities did not prosecute spousal rape. The concept of spousal rape was not well understood, and authorities often did not consider it a crime.

In July 2018 the Assembly amended the law on domestic violence to extend protection to victims in an active relationship or civil union. The amendments created a protective order that automatically protects children as well. Police implemented automated application issuance processes within the Police Case Management System, which allow for rapid issuance of protective orders and produces a historical record of orders issued. Through August the system generated more than 1,600 protective orders.

NGOs reported high levels of domestic violence against women. According to a 2018 survey of women between the ages of 18 and 74 that the UN Development Program released in March, 52.9 percent of women surveyed reported having been subjected to violence or sexual harassment during their lifetimes. The Albanian State Police reported 11 domestic violence-related murders through July.

The government operated one shelter to protect survivors of domestic violence and three shelters for victims of human trafficking that also accommodated victims of domestic violence. In December 2018 the government began operating a crisis management center for victims of sexual assault, at the Tirana University Hospital Center. The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare reported that as of September the center had treated 23 victims.

Sexual Harassment: The law prohibits sexual harassment, but officials rarely enforced it. The commissioner for protection from discrimination (CPD) generally handled cases of sexual harassment and could impose fines of up to 80,000 leks ($720) against individuals or 600,000 leks ($5,400) against enterprises.

Through July the State Police reported 33 cases of sexual harassment that involved 32 suspected perpetrators and 31 victims, 30 of whom were women. In one case, media outlets reported in February that a police officer allegedly sent sexual images to a 15-year-old girl. The central and local structures of the Internal Affairs and Appeals Service at the Ministry of Interior opened a criminal investigation, which was ongoing as of October, and the Professional Standards Directorate in the State Police dismissed the officer.

Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization.

Discrimination: The law provides the same legal status and rights for women as for men, but the government did not enforce the law effectively. Women were underrepresented in many fields at the highest levels. The law mandates equal pay for equal work, although many private employers did not fully implement this provision. In many communities, women experienced societal discrimination based on traditional social norms subordinating women to men.

There were reports of discrimination in employment, and the CPD adjudicated 44 cases through July. In one example, the CPD received a complaint against Philip Morris Albania, alleging the company fired a woman because she went on maternity leave. The CPD ruled the company had discriminated against the woman based on gender. The company appealed the decision to the administrative court, which upheld the CPD decision; the plaintiff can seek compensation in the trial court system.

In another case, the CPD recommended that Albawings airline remove gender and age criteria from job-vacancy announcements and stop requesting pictures of applicants for flight attendant positions. Albawings complied with the recommendations.

Gender-biased Sex Selection: According to official figures, in 2018 the ratio of boys to girls at birth was 108 to 100. There were no government-supported efforts to address the imbalance.

Birth Registration: An individual acquires citizenship by birth in the country or from a citizen parent. There were no reports of discrimination in birth registration, but onerous residency and documentation requirements for registration made it more difficult for the many Romani and Balkan-Egyptian parents who lacked legally documented places of residence to register their children.

The Assembly amended the law on civil status, which entered into force in 2018, to provide financial incentives for birth registration. The government also issued instructions clarifying the process of birth registration for children born abroad. Several maternity hospitals opened civil registry desks to facilitate birth registration.

Children born to internal migrants, including some Romani families, or those returning from abroad, frequently had no birth certificates or other legal documents and consequently were unable to attend school or have access to services.

Education: School attendance is mandatory through the ninth grade or until the age of 16, whichever occurs first, but many children, particularly in rural areas, left school earlier to work with their families. Parents must purchase supplies, books, uniforms, and space heaters for some classrooms; these were prohibitively expensive for many families, particularly Roma and members of other minorities. Many families also cited these costs as a reason for not sending girls to school.

Children in first through fourth grade are legally entitled to free textbooks, but some smaller municipalities did not provide them, and parents had to pay for them. Curricula varied from school to school, so parents of children who changed schools during the academic year had to pay for a second set of schoolbooks. An NGO provided school materials, bags, uniforms, and access to schoolbooks to children in four municipalities who were mainly from Roma and Balkan-Egyptian communities.

Some children, particularly those located in the city of Shkoder, were unable to attend school due to their families’ involvement in blood feuds based on the Kanun, a set of traditional Albanian laws. Children were confined to their homes due to fear of revenge attacks.

Early and Forced Marriage: Although the legal minimum age for marriage is 18, authorities did not always enforce the law. Underage marriages occurred mostly in rural areas and within Romani communities.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: Penalties for the commercial sexual exploitation of a child range from eight to 15 years’ imprisonment. The country has a statutory rape law; the minimum age for consensual sex is 14. The penalty for statutory rape is a prison term of five to 15 years. In aggravated circumstances, the penalty may increase to life imprisonment. The law prohibits making or distributing child pornography; penalties are a prison sentence of three to 10 years. Possession of child pornography is also illegal.

Authorities generally enforced laws against the rape and sexual exploitation of minors effectively, but NGOs reported that they rarely enforced laws prohibiting child pornography. The government reported that, as of July, two children had been sexually exploited, but there were no cases involving pornography.

Displaced Children: There were many displaced and street children, particularly in the Romani community. Some street children begged and some of them became trafficking victims. Since the law prohibits the prosecution of children younger than 14 for burglary, criminal gangs at times used displaced children to burglarize homes.

The State Agency for the Protection of Children’s Rights reported that as of July authorities had identified 165 street children, eight of whom were victims or potential victims of trafficking. Authorities placed 17 children under protective orders that prevented the perpetrator from approaching or contacting the victim, and sent four other cases for prosecution. They referred 67 children to shelters. Through June child protection units (CPUs) in local communities reported that they had identified a total of 1,145 children at risk of abuse in the country.

Institutionalized Children: UNHCR considered the migrant detention facility in Karrec to be unsuitable for children and families. The government made efforts to avoid sending children there, sending them instead to the open migrant facility in Babrru.

UNICEF reported that as of July more than 70 percent of the approximately 240 children living in public institutions had been evaluated as having delays in their physical, emotional, and cognitive development.

Some NGOs raised concerns about the transparency of the treatment of children who were under state residential care. The law allows for moving children out of residential centers and into the care of foster families, but the government and the municipalities have not used this option frequently.

Through August there were 23 juveniles in the justice system, three of whom had been convicted. The country lacked enough adequate facilities for pretrial detention of children, although the Juvenile Institute in Kavaja was adequate for the population it served. The GDP reported that the number of minors in pretrial detention and detention facilities had decreased because of alternative sentencing. By the end of 2018, all juvenile inmates in Lezha, Korca, and Vlora detention facilities had been transferred to the Juvenile Institute in Kavaja, which serves as the only institution in the country for juvenile offenders.

International Child Abductions: The country is a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

Reports indicated that there were 40 to 50 Jews living in the country. There were no reports of anti-Semitic acts.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

The constitution and laws prohibit discrimination against persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, and mental disabilities. Nevertheless, employers, schools, health-care providers, and providers of other state services at times engaged in discrimination. The law mandates that new public buildings be accessible to persons with disabilities, but the government only sporadically enforced the law. From February 2018 through March 2019, the government adapted the premises of 2,567 offices to accommodate persons with disabilities.

As of July the CPD had received 18 complaints and opened two additional investigations on its own initiative of alleged discrimination against individuals with disabilities, ruling in favor of the complainants in four cases. In one case, the CPD ruled against the municipality of Shkoder for not offering free public transportation to persons with disabilities as required by law and ordered the municipality to begin providing such services.

The government sponsored social services agencies to protect the rights of persons with disabilities, but these agencies lacked funding to implement their programs adequately. Resource constraints and lack of infrastructure made it difficult for persons with disabilities to participate fully in civic affairs. Voting centers often were in facilities that lacked accommodations for such persons. A 2018 study by World Vision and Save the Children reported that none of the 10 municipalities surveyed had a plan to eliminate barriers to information, communication, and mobility for persons with disabilities or a dedicated budget to address the problem.

As of August the Office of the Ombudsman inspected four mental health institutions during the year and found that patients were given inadequate psychiatric evaluations upon both admission to and discharge from the institutions. Persons with mental and other disabilities were subject to societal discrimination and stigmatization.

There were allegations of discrimination against members of the Romani and Balkan-Egyptian communities, including in housing, employment, health care, and education. Some schools resisted accepting Romani and Balkan-Egyptian students, particularly if the students appeared to be poor. Many schools that accepted Romani students marginalized them in the classroom, sometimes by physically setting them apart from other students.

As of July the CPD had received 25 complaints of discrimination on grounds of race and ethnicity and opened two additional investigations on its own initiative, ruling in favor of the complainant in nine cases. In one case, the CPD ruled against Fier municipality and its water and sewage utility for discriminating against several Romani households. The CPD ordered the municipality and utility to supply running water to the families. When the municipality and utility did not respond, the CPD imposed fines on them.

The government adopted legislation on official minorities in 2017 but had yet to pass all the implementing regulations. The law provides official minority status for nine national minorities without distinguishing between national and ethnolinguistic groups. The government defined Greeks, Macedonians, Aromanians (Vlachs), Roma, Balkan-Egyptians, Montenegrins, Bosnians, Serbs, and Bulgarians as national minorities. The legislation provides for minority language education and dual official language use for the local administrative units in which minorities traditionally reside or in which a minority makes up 20 percent of the total population. The ethnic Greek minority complained about the government’s unwillingness to recognize ethnic Greek communities outside communist-era “minority zones.”

Acts of Violence, Discrimination, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

The law prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, including in employment. Enforcement of the law was generally weak. Aleanca, an NGO advocating for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) community, reported four cases of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity reported to the CPD as of September. In one case, the CPD ruled against a police commissariat and imposed a fine.

Sexual orientation and gender identity are among the classes protected by the country’s hate crime law. Despite the law and the government’s formal support for LGBTI rights, public officials sometimes made homophobic statements. As of September, Aleanca reported 46 cases of physical and psychological violence, six of which involved minors. In 201, Aleanca documented 421 cases of physical and psychological violence against LGBTI community members.

The CPD investigated four cases of alleged discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation and opened an additional investigation on its own initiative.

In March the Ministry of Health and Social Protection initiated a fund of 287,450 leks ($2,600) to cover approximately 25 percent of the yearly operating costs for Streha, the only shelter for LGBTI people in the country. Through August, Streha had assisted 16 persons who faced violence or discrimination due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The law prohibits discrimination against individuals with HIV or AIDS. The Albanian Association of People Living with HIV or AIDS reported that stigma and discrimination caused individuals to avoid getting tested for HIV, leading to delayed diagnosis and consequently delayed access to care and support. Persons living with HIV or AIDS faced employment discrimination, and children living with HIV faced discrimination in school.

Rape and Domestic Violence: The law criminalizes rape but does not specifically address spousal rape. Prison sentences for rape range from five to 10 years, and, although sex crimes are rarely reported owing to cultural norms, authorities generally enforced the law. A provision of the penal code allows an adult accused of “corruption of a minor” to avoid prosecution if the accused subsequently marries his or her victim and if the crime did not involve violence, threats, or fraud.

Domestic violence remains a society-wide problem. The law states that a person claiming domestic abuse must visit a “forensic physician” for an examination to document injuries and that the physician must determine that the injuries suffered “incapacitated” the victim for 15 days. The law prescribes up to a 20-year imprisonment for the accused, depending on the severity of injuries. If domestic violence results in death, a judge may impose a life sentence.

For the first quarter of the year, the Ministry for National Solidarity, Family, and Women reported that there were 1,734 logged cases of violence against women. According to statistics from women’s advocacy groups published in the local press, between 100 and 200 women died each year from domestic violence. The government maintained two regional women’s shelters and plans to open two additional shelters in Annaba by the end of the year. These shelters assisted with approximately 300 cases of violence against women during the year. The Information and Documentation Center on the Rights of Children and Women, a network of local organizations that promoted the rights of women, managed call centers in 15 provinces.

On August 8, a man killed his wife at the home of her parents following a marital dispute. The victim, a teacher and mother of three, was found by her family and transported to the local hospital, where she died from severe blood loss. The husband was arrested and placed in pretrial detention pending his appearance in court.

During the year a women’s advocacy group, the Wassila Network, received 200 cases of domestic violence. The Wassila Network noted this number is a fraction of actual cases since victims of domestic violence rarely report the abuse to authorities and because of a forgiveness clause provided in the legal code. The clause stipulates that, if the victim forgives his or her aggressor, legal action ceases. The Wassila Network described situations in which a victim goes to police to report a domestic violence incident and family members convince the victim to forgive the aggressor, resulting in no charges.

The law provides for sentences of one to 20 years’ imprisonment for domestic violence and six months to two years’ incarceration for men who withhold property or financial resources from their spouses.

In February 2018 the Ministry for National Solidarity, Family, and Women and UN Women launched an administrative database, named AMANE, to collect information on violence against women. They were working to translate the database into Arabic. UN Women is using the information collected to assist the government in developing targeted programs to support and protect women in vulnerable situations, including violence, as part of one of its programs funded by the Belgian Government.

Female Genital Mutilation and Cutting (FGM/C): This was not generally practiced in the country but was widely present among immigrant communities in southern sectors, particularly among Sub-Saharan African migrant groups. While this abuse is considered a criminal offense punishable by up to 25 years in prison, there were no reports of any related convictions, nor any official pronouncements by religious or secular leaders proscribing the practice.

Sexual Harassment: The punishment for sexual harassment is one to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of dinars 50,000 to 100,000 ($425 to $850); the punishment doubles for a second offense. Women’s groups reported that the majority of reported cases of harassment occurred in the workplace.

Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization.

Discrimination: Although the constitution provides for gender equality, aspects of the law and traditional social practices discriminated against women. In addition, some religious elements advocated restrictions on women’s behavior, including freedom of movement. The law prohibits Muslim women from marrying non-Muslims, although authorities did not always enforce this provision.

Women may seek divorce for irreconcilable differences and violation of a prenuptial agreement. In a divorce, the law provides for the wife to retain the family’s home until the children reach age 18. Authorities normally awarded custody of children to the mother, but she may not make decisions about education or take the children out of the country without the father’s authorization. The government provided a subsidy for divorced women whose former husbands failed to make child support payments.

The law affirms the religiously based practice of allowing a man to marry as many as four wives. The law permits polygamy only upon the agreement of the previous and future wife, and the determination of a judge as to the husband’s financial ability to support an additional wife. It was unclear whether authorities followed the law in all cases since local authorities had significant discretion and the government did not maintain nationwide statistics.

Women suffered from discrimination in inheritance claims and were entitled to a smaller portion of an estate than male children or a deceased husband’s brothers. Women did not often have exclusive control over assets that they brought to a marriage or that they earned.

Women may own businesses, enter into contracts, and pursue careers similar to those of men. Women enjoyed rights equal to those of men concerning property ownership, and property titles listed female landowners’ names.

Birth registration: The mother or father may transmit citizenship and nationality. By law, children born to a Muslim father are Muslim, regardless of the mother’s religion. The law does not differentiate between girls and boys in registration of birth.

Child Abuse: Child abuse was illegal but was a serious continued problem. The government devoted increasing resources and attention to it. A national committee is responsible for monitoring and publishing an annual report on the rights of children. The government supported the Qatari NGO Network for the Defense of Children’s Rights.

Laws prohibiting parental abduction do not penalize mothers and fathers differently, and the punishment for convicted kidnappers includes the death penalty.

Early and Forced Marriage: The legal minimum age of marriage is 19 for both men and women, but minors may marry with parental consent, regardless of gender. The law forbids legal guardians from forcing minors under their care to marry against the minor’s will. The Ministry of Religious Affairs required that couples present a government-issued marriage certificate before permitting imams to conduct religious marriage ceremonies.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: The law prohibits solicitation for prostitution and stipulates prison sentences of between 10 and 20 years when the offense is committed against a minor under age 18. By law the age for consensual sex is 16. The law stipulates a prison sentence of between 10 and 20 years for rape when the victim is a minor.

The law established a national council to address children’s issues, gives judges authority to remove children from an abusive home, and allows sexually abused children to provide testimony on video rather than in court.

International Child Abductions: The country is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

The country’s Jewish population numbered fewer than 200 persons.

Religious and civil society leaders reported that the Jewish community faced unofficial, religion-based obstacles to government employment and administrative difficulties when working with government bureaucracy.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

The law prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities, although the government did not always effectively enforce these provisions (see also section 7, Worker Rights).

The Ministry of National Solidarity, Family, and the Status of Women provided some financial support to health-care-oriented NGOs, but for many NGOs, such financial support represented a small fraction of their budgets. The government provided disability benefits to persons with disabilities who registered.

The Ministry of National Solidarity, Family, and Women reported that it ran 238 centers throughout the country that provided support for persons with intellectual, auditory, vision, and physical disabilities–down from 242 the previous year.

The ministry stated that it worked with the Ministry of Education to integrate children with disabilities into public schools to promote inclusion. The majority of the ministry’s programs for children with disabilities remained in social centers for children with disabilities rather than in formal educational institutions. Advocacy groups reported that children with disabilities rarely attended school past the secondary level. Many schools lacked teachers trained to work with children with disabilities, threatening the viability of efforts to mainstream children with disabilities into public schools.

Many persons with disabilities faced challenges in voting due to voting centers that lacked accessible features.

Acts of Violence, Discrimination, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

The law criminalizes public indecency and consensual same-sex sexual relations between adult men or women, with penalties that include imprisonment of six months to three years and a fine of dinars 1,000 to dinars 10,000 ($8.50 to $85). The law also stipulates penalties that include imprisonment of two months to two years and fines of dinars 500 to dinars 2,000 ($4.25 to $17) for anyone convicted of having committed a “homosexual act.” If a minor is involved, the adult may face up to three years’ imprisonment and a fine of dinars 10,000 ($85). LGBTI activists reported that the vague wording of laws criminalizing “homosexual acts” and “acts against nature” permitted sweeping accusations that resulted in multiple arrests for consensual same-sex sexual relations, but no known prosecutions during the year.

LGBTI status is not, in itself, criminalized; however, LGBTI persons may face criminal prosecution under legal provisions concerning prostitution, public indecency, and associating with bad characters. NGOs reported that judges gave harsher sentences to LGBTI persons for the above crimes compared to non-LGBTI persons. An NGO reported that LGBTI men were targeted more often than women.

The law does not extend antidiscrimination protections to LGBTI persons based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or sex characteristics. Officials assert that the law covers LGBTI individuals through general civil and human rights legislation. Government officials did not take measures specifically to prevent discrimination against LGBTI persons. LGBTI persons faced discrimination in accessing health services such as longer wait times, refusal of treatment, and shaming. Some organizations maintained a list of “LGBTI-friendly” hospitals, and several NGOs operated mobile clinics specifically for vulnerable communities. NGOs reported that employers refused jobs to LGBTI persons, particularly men perceived as effeminate. Community members said that obtaining legal assistance was also a challenge due to similar discrimination.

On February 10, a medical student who had previously shared his LGBTI status on Facebook was killed in his university residence. Alouen, an LGBTI activist group, called the attack a “homophobic hate crime,” because the two assailants, reportedly peers of the victim, wrote “He is gay” on the crime scene wall in the victims’ blood. The incident sparked a protest of several hundred students as well as criticism from the media and civil society groups regarding both homophobia and security on university campuses.

Members of the LGBTI community reported that forced marriage was a problem, particularly for lesbian women.

During the year authorities blocked LGBTI NGOs from organizing meetings. The NGOs reported harassment and threats of imprisonment by government authorities.

Strong social stigma towards the vulnerable groups in which HIV/AIDS was most concentrated–commercial sex workers, men who have sexual relations with men, and drug users–deterred testing of these groups. The government said it did not take measures to specifically prevent and treat HIV/AIDS in the LGBTI community.

The government’s National AIDS Committee met twice during the year. The committee brought together various government and civil society actors to discuss implementation of the national strategy to combat HIV/AIDS.

Academics and activists said that sub-Saharan African migrants sometimes faced discrimination and that there were tensions in some communities between the native and migrant populations.

On February 5, a 22-year-old Zimbabwean student was stabbed and killed, sparking a protest by dozens of sub-Saharan students demanding justice. The students told reporters that foreign students regularly face aggression and assault from local citizens.