The risk of emigration

A young community, but suffering from mass emigration: that’s the reality of the Catholic presence in Kosovo: out of a population of 2,100,000 inhabitants, Catholics amount to some 65,000; over 40,000 have emigrated. 33% of the population of Kosovo is under the age of 14, only 7% is over the age of 65. Of the 48 priests incardinated in the diocese, 32 are working in Kosovo; the rest are missionaries, especially in Albania and Croatia, or provide pastoral care to Kosovar communities abroad. “The young are there, you don’t have to make an effort to find them, and our clergy, it too young, has no difficulty in relating to them”, explained the apostolic administrator of Prizren, Monsignor DODË GJERGI , on meeting in recent day a delegation of the Italian Bishops’ Conference visiting the Balkans to promote the “Agora of Mediterranean youth”. “The greatest risk, rather, is linked to emigration: there are parishes where the majority of youth are now living abroad”. The phenomenon is due to the high rate of unemployment in the Balkan country, which is impoverishing the Catholic community: “We feel this strongly and we suffer from it – added Msgr. Gjergi – because we are already too few”. EMIGRATION: DREAM AND REALITY. Abroad is a chimera and yet it represents the only way of survival for many Kosovars. “Since the 1980s many families have survived only thanks to the remittances sent by relatives working in other countries”, explains PAL BAFTJIAI , in charge of the socio-pastoral programme of Caritas Kosovo. “We are now in the third generation of emigrants, and if formerly it was only the men who left, now he takes his whole family with him”. For many youths, going to the West represents a dream; this is also due to the fact that “it’s not easy for a Kosovar to leave his own country: even getting a visa to go on a camping holiday in Italy in the summer is difficult”. But this situation leads “young people to seek ‘shortcuts’ to realise their dream which, once they have embarked on it, turns out to be a one-way ticket: there’s no turning back”. It leads them, for instance, to place themselves in the hands of organized crime to abandon the country clandestinely or, seduced by the mirage of a job, to end up victims of the trafficking of women for sexual exploitation. It would be important, on the other hand, says Baftjiai, “to bring home to young people what life is like in the West and what are the risks run by those who leave the country, lured by false promises of work”. To this end, “exchanges with youngsters living in Italy and in other European countries could help the youth of Kosovo to realise that life abroad is not all that simple”. TRADE IN HUMAN BEINGS. One of the sectors in which Caritas Kosovo is most actively involved is just that of the prevention and countering of the trafficking of human beings. It recently won a public competition with which the American Agency for Development allocated funds for this purpose. “The trafficking of human beings for purposes of sexual exploitation is unfortunately a well developed phenomenon”, points out the coordinator of Caritas Kosovo, JAKUP SABEDINI . “Young women arrive here by force from Albania, while others of Kosovar origin are forced into prostitution either here or abroad”. And if in Albania thousands of girls have been kidnapped, sent onto the street and sometimes killed in recent years, here in Kosovo “the most common lure to attract them is the offer of a job, then, as soon as they are in the hands of their exploiters, their identity papers are taken away from them and they are forced, often with violence, to prostitute themselves”. “We work together with all the religions present in the territory – says Sabedini – to involve the leaders of the various communities in the awareness-raising campaign, exploiting their influence in the education of the young”. The phenomenon has assumed alarming dimensions, especially since the end of the war in 1999. “With the intervention of the international organizations – he continues – the flow of money into the country has increased, and so too, as a consequence, has the criminal presence that controls this racket in coordination with the mafias in neighbouring countries, such as Italy and Albania”. PROMOTING COEXISTENCE. But Caritas also devotes attention to other extremely important sectors for the country. “We run a programme of youth animation – explains the coordinator – and a counselling centre; we have built a school and are working in defence of disabled persons; lastly, in Mitrovica, a town that symbolises the clash between Serbs and Albanians, we are working for the promotion of peace”. In all its activities Caritas “is involving Serbs and Albanians without distinction, and in summer it promotes summer camps for children of both communities on themes of peace and reconciliation”. The positive results achieved in this direction have not been slow in coming. “In 2004 there were moments of tension between the two ethnic groups, erupting into numerous killings in the space of a few days”, recalls Sabedini. “Various organizations, within which both Serbs and Albanians work together, suffered a grievous setback at that time, but as far as Caritas Kosovo is concerned all our staff have remained united”.