The Ugandan woman spoke of the months she spent in Albania as the worst time of her life. “Like prison,” she said.
“We didn’t have ID cards, we didn’t have employment permits, we didn’t have passports. Any identification document was withheld and we couldn’t move,” she said.
The woman, a 30-year-old beautician, spoke to BIRN by phone from her home in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. Asking not to be named, the woman said she had taken a job in a tourist resort in Orikum, southern Albania, on the promise of a one-year contract and a salary that outstripped what she could ever hope to earn in Uganda.
But first she had to pay 2,000 euros to the agency that mediated her recruitment. “I haven’t recouped even half of that,” the woman said.
On arriving, she found that the job she applied for wasn’t actually available. She surrendered her passport and was made to do other menial work, before she complained and eventually left.
Hundreds of workers from Uganda and Nigeria have suffered a similar fate – lured to Albania to work in the country’s growing tourism sector, only to face exploitation including inhumane working hours, limits on their freedom of movement and unpaid overtime.
A number of those who spoke to BIRN said they had paid between 1,200 and 2,000 euros to recruitment agencies, which arranged the paperwork to secure visas and work permits. Many sought help from the Redeemer’s Church in Tirana, a religious organisation led by a pastor from Nigeria called Prince C. Mazie.
“I have dozens of cases of workers from Africa, India and other countries who complain about discrimination and who are continuously threatened with eviction from the country if they complain or are simply fired by the end of the summer season,” said Mazie, who has lived in Tirana for the past 16 years.
“This is inhumane. If you have signed a one-year contract, you must respect it.”
Albania’s Labour Inspectorate, the state body responsible for upholding workplace rights, said it is a criminal offence to withhold an employee’s passport, on a par with “kidnapping” or “unlawful imprisonment”. But its inspectors have never come across such a practice, it told BIRN.
Migrant workers often suffer violations such as unpaid overtime but this is commonplace for Albanians too, said Irida Qosja, deputy director of the Labour Inspectorate.
“Those who employ Albanians on the black market do the same with foreigners,” said Qosja.
Passports seized on arrival
As one of the poorest countries in Europe, Albania is struggling with high rates of emigration, forcing employers in the tourism sector to increasingly look elsewhere for seasonal labour from countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, the Philippines and a number of African states.
Their numbers are still low, but growing. In 2022-2023, work permits were issued to 3,784 individuals from Asia and 1,028 from Africa.
In early October, BIRN received an anonymous email claiming that 27 workers from Uganda, employed at the Oricon Coast Luxury Resort in Orikum, faced restrictions on their freedom of movement and had been threatened with deportation if they complained. The same email was sent to the police, the Labour Inspectorate, the Social Security Fund and a number of civil society organisations.
This reporter visited the resort, where several Ugandan workers said they had been effectively been living in isolation for months, forbidden to leave the premises and deprived of their IDs.
“I walk from there to here,” said one 26-year-old woman, pointing to her accommodation. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the woman said Ugandan workers who want to send money home to their families are escorted to the bank. Only then do they regain possession of their passports, for the duration of the transaction. The same goes for trips to the doctor.
Others complained of forced, unpaid overtime and racial discrimination.
“If we complain, they warn us: we will send you back in Africa,” said one.
Adjon Hanxhari, owner of Oricon Coast Luxury Resort, dismissed claims of exploitation, citing multiple labour inspections that had not identified any violations.
“The claim of violations is an invention from an anonymous source,” Hanxhari told BIRN in a message on WhatsApp. “Regarding the claim that the company has unjustly withheld their passports, this has been clarified from our side with the employees who actually continue to work for our group.”
The Ugandan workers later told BIRN they were given their passports on October 22 following a visit from the Labour Inspectorate.
Eljo Mucaj, the chief inspector, said inspectors were sent to the resort following anonymous email but that the Ugandans they spoke to did not say that their passports had been taken.
“If they do not complain, it is impossible for a labour inspector to prove that the passport has been withheld from the employer,” Mucaj told BIRN.
That does not mean it isn’t happening.
In separate interviews, several migrants told BIRN their passports were seized by their new employers immediately on arrival at Tirana International Airport.
One was from Uganda and hired to work at the Grand Blue FAFA hotel near the northern port city of Durres.
“We work all the day long; we have no time to ask for our passport,” he told BIRN by phone.
The hotel manager could not be reached for comment.
Recruitment agency denies responsibility
In Orikum, a 33-year-old Ugandan told BIRN he had paid the recruitment agency 1,200 euros, the equivalent of 12 months’ rent in Kampala. He feared losing his job, however, as the tourist season ends.
Another, working as a beach attendant just south of Durres, said he had paid roughly 1,900 euros and was now coming under pressure to leave. Still in the red after months of work, the Ugandan said he had agreed to anything asked of him.
“I have not yet recouped this money,” he said, also expressing fear of deportation.
A third migrant worker said he had taken a loan to pay the agency and was still paying it back.
Qosja, from the Labour Inspectorate, said the Inspectorate considers such payments as illegal and was investigating such agencies.
Documenting such violations is difficult, however, if the money is paid in cash in the country of origin, Qosja told BIRN.
In terms of the termination of employment contracts, Qosja said there is little the Inspectorate can do. “Each of us faces performance evaluations,” she said.
Albania Employment Solution, the agency that mediated the recruitment of the Ugandan workers for Oricon Coast Luxury Resort, said it was unaware of any exploitation and said any eventual labour violations were a matter for the authorities.
“The way in which a company treats its employees is not monitored by me and it is impossible for me to do so,” said the agency’s manager, Sonila Sinaj. “Once they land in Albania, the employers are responsible.”
‘An object, not a human being’
Mazie, the pastor, said he had been told of cases in which migrant workers were promised salaries of 1,000 euros a month only to be fired when the summer season was over.
“Some of them take loans or sell properties to pay for the emigration opportunity and most of them live in fear,” he told BIRN.
One 29-year-old Nigerian told BIRN he was deported by police two months after arriving, when he and two other employees were fired from a company called P&GG – which produces statuettes and other objects – near the Albanian capital, Tirana. All three of them held one-year permits to stay. The man said a female colleague from Cameroon had fled one night, fearing she would be deported. BIRN learned that the woman is now in a shelter for victims of human trafficking.
Gentian Dallashi, owner and director of P&GG, described the employees as “lazy, liars and violent” and said he had terminated their contracts, which is the basis of their work permit. Using racial slurs, Dallashi told BIRN: “They were under my responsibility. I sent them back home. I paid everything I owed to them.”
Andi Rabiaj, executive director of the NGO Youth Voice Network of Organisation, filed a complaint to the office of the Albanian Ombudsperson. The subsequent investigation made little headway. Police acknowledged receiving a request from the employer for the employees’ permits to be cancelled but denied deporting any of them.
Rabiaj said the law leaves migrant workers unprotected.
“The law grants to the employer the right to extradite the employee if he doesn’t like them,” he told BIRN. “It’s like purchasing an object, not a human being.”