The Project Method and the Team

To produce this series, eight Albanian journalists worked for two weeks in January 2001 to turn the Albanian human trafficking issue upside down. For the first time, this series views the issue from the point of view of the young Albanian girls returning to their country after a life of terror on the streets of Italy.

Editor Don Pine (right) plots interviewing strategy with team members before an "assault" on the Durres police station in Southern Albania.

The journalist team, consisting of six reporters from Tirana, one from Shkodra and one from Gjirocastra, found that young girls barely out of puberty and abducted or enticed into the sex trade are coming home to a government, a police establishment and to families and neighbors, who despise them as common criminals, and reject them as victims of one of organized crime's most vicious trades.

The project also introduced the journalists to the team reporting concept where reporting and writing duties are shared, so none of the stories carry bylines.

The "project plan" (center) and the team trying to follow it while writing on deadline in the newsroom at the Media Institute.

The project was jointly organized by The Media Diversity Institute in London, The Center for War, Peace and the News Media in New York, and the Albanian Media Institute in Tirana. The project was funded by the U.S. State Department and the EC.

The journalists: Zylyftar Bregu, Alma Cupi, Adrian Hoti, Beti Njuma, Edmond Prifti, Karolina Risto, Leonard Sako, Sokol Shameti.

The editors: Llzare Semini for the Media Institute and Donald W. Pine for the Media Diversity Institute.