ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I describe and analyse the declared migration motivation and migration decision making of the researched women. I also examine common assumptions about the origins of trafficked women and other assumptions about how and why they are involved in trafficking. I will argue that these assumptions are flawed and trafficking theories about Albania must therefore be re-conceptualised. I describe the different types of women who have been the recruited into trafficking in Albania and demonstrate how this trafficking flow has evolved. I argue that that some traditional social values and practices are influencing some young women to try and migrate to secure more personal freedoms as well as to still acquire the traditional indicators of a successful family life. I then specifically describe how many Albanian women are migrating to escape social traditions that they consider intolerable and that because of a lack of migration opportunities an increasing number of women, especially divorced women, are deliberately resorting to trafficking as the means to escape this intolerability.
