Court blocks Home Office from deporting male trafficking victims to Albania

A British court has blocked the Home Office from automatically deporting young male trafficking victims back to Albania, marking a significant legal setback for a government determined to accelerate deportations. The ruling emerged from a case brought by a 21-year-old Albanian man who was first exploited at 16 when he traveled to Belgium with his father. There, an Albanian gang sold him to another criminal network that transported him to the UK and forced him to cultivate cannabis in illegal farms. After he escaped and was officially recognized as a trafficking victim, the Home Office denied him asylum on the grounds that Albania would be safe for his return. Three senior judges in the immigration tribunal disagreed, finding that despite five years having passed since his initial exploitation, he remained in genuine danger from his traffickers and could not safely return home.

The scale of the problem is substantial. In the past five years, Albanians have been the most frequently deported nationality from the UK, with 2,247 removed in the year ending March alone—roughly a quarter of all enforced returns. Yet thousands of those deported have been identified as potential trafficking victims. The nature of that trafficking has shifted markedly over recent years. Where Albanian women were once the dominant victims, trafficked primarily into sex work, they have been supplanted by boys and young men forced into the drugs trade. Government data presented in court showed that in 2022, 4,107 Albanian males were referred to UK services as potential trafficking victims compared to 502 women. The following year, the disparity widened: 3,463 males against 588 females.

The judges' decision rested on findings about conditions in Albania itself. While acknowledging that the country has made efforts to combat corruption, the court found that corruption remains pervasive and that Albania offers no dedicated shelters for adult male trafficking victims. More critically, the tribunal concluded that the risk of victims being re-trafficked upon return is substantial. Islington Law Centre, which specializes in representing Albanian trafficking victims, provided detailed evidence of the methods used by organized criminal networks. These gangs deliberately film sexual abuse, including rape of child victims, and threaten to distribute the footage on social media. They show videos of victims' families in Albania to young people in the UK to demonstrate they know exactly who and where their relatives are. They inflict deliberate physical injuries—broken bones, for instance—on children and young people in their control.

Esme Madill, a solicitor at Islington Law Centre, welcomed the judgment as measured and grounded in substantial evidence about the trafficking of boys and young men by Albanian organized crime networks. She noted that the court's findings aligned closely with what her organization witnesses weekly: deeply traumatized and brutalized young survivors. The ruling establishes new country guidance that the Home Office must now consider before deciding whether to deport male trafficking victims to Albania. It is a constraint the government did not anticipate and does not welcome. Home Office sources indicated they are weighing whether to seek permission to appeal the decision, a move that would pit the government's stated goal of increasing removals directly against the courts' assessment of real danger to vulnerable people.