Family Begging as Modern Slavery: Between Child Mistreatment and Human Trafficking

A child’s outstretched hand at a street intersection is one of the most legally misunderstood images of contemporary exploitation. This article examines whether, and under what circumstances, the use of children and vulnerable persons for begging by their own family members should be classified not as the lesser offence of “mistreatment of a minor”, but as “trafficking in human beings”, a form of modern slavery. Drawing on the most recent global estimates of modern slavery and data from UNODC, Eurostat, GRETA, and Albanian sources, the study first establishes the empirical scale of a phenomenon that is widespread, growing, concentrated among children and the most vulnerable communities, and frequently perpetrated within the family itself. It then reconstructs the international and European legal framework, from the Palermo Protocol and the Warsaw Convention to ILO Convention No. 29, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and Directives 2011/36/EU and 2024/1712, under which forced begging is recognised as a form of exploitation and the consent of a child victim is legally irrelevant.

Through a detailed examination of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights under Article 4, from Siliadin to V.C.L. and A.N., and a comparative analysis of five criminal-law systems—Italy, France, Spain, Germany, and England—the article demonstrates that these jurisdictions share a common “two-track” legal framework: a lesser child-protection offence and a more serious trafficking offence, distinguished not by the identity or familial relationship of the perpetrator, but by the presence of the constituent elements of trafficking.

Against this background, the article analyses the Albanian legal response, focusing on Unifying Decision No. 217/2022 of the Supreme Court and the draft Criminal Code, and argues that the fact that the perpetrator is a parent does not exclude the legal qualification of trafficking and may, under certain circumstances, constitute an aggravating factor. It concludes that the proper legal qualification of familial forced begging constitutes both a test of the maturity of the criminal justice system and a measure of its commitment to protecting human dignity.