Albanian Trafficking Investigation
The Project
Pine organized and led a team of eight Albanian journalists on a two week project to turn the Albanian human trafficking issue upside down. Pine acted as editor and rewrite man on all the stories.
For the first time in Albania, this series views the issue from the point of view of the young Albanian girls, who have been abducted or enticed into the prostitution trade and then returned to their country after a life of terror on the streets of Italy.
The project was published in four Albanian national dailies and the leading news weekly magazine in February 2002.
The journalist team, consisting of six reporters from Tirana, one from Shkodra and one from Gjirocastra, found that the young prostitutes, who are barely out of puberty when they are coerced into leaving, come home as young women to a government, the police 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 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.