For Dorina, since she had started high school in a small town in Albania, the day for safe internet, as for all her peers, should be a day of celebration and engagement in public activities. But contrary to that she decided to drop out of school. It all started with a joke among the peers where a boy in her class made fun of her being fat. A few days later a friend sent her a video showing her photos, that have been taken without permission on Instagram, altered and with so many denigrating words. The song and music attached to the video were equally insulting. The video had already received hundreds of likes and was commented on by people she didn’t know. For the first time in her life, she thought of dropping out of school because she was embarrassed. She didn’t tell her parents, but her mother realized that there was something wrong with her and after a few days she sat down to talk to her. Both decided to go to the police to get help. After about an hour of conversation with a polite police officer, they realized that even the police could not help them. Dorina’s mother, thanks to information provided by a friend, reported to iSIGURT.al requesting the page to be removed. Days later the video was removed from the internet. However, Dorina continues to stay home for fear that being ridiculed from everyone in her school.



Tirana, 6 February 2024 – Thousands of children and adolescents every day become victims of violence, bullying, abuse and crimes in cyberspace in Albania. The Council of Europe reported few years back that almost 20 per cent of children in public education were victims of bullying 2-3 times a day. Only a small proportion of these incidents are reported to authorities or the National Hotline for Child Internet Safety, as most victims feel scared, ashamed or have no confidence to the authorities to report. Known as the ” phenomenon of Iceberg” violence against children is affecting every aspect of children’s lives, and poses the most serious risk to their well-being and welfare.

Against this reality, the child protection system, education, law enforcement and cyber security bodies are unprepared to cope with the endless scale of online incidents that children and adolescents face. The current legal and institutional architecture, with serious shortfalls in terms of legal protections for children who fall victims of serious incidents and crimes in the digital space and with two authorities who so far have been powerless to take any measures and actions for the protection of children (Agency for Child Rights and Protection- AMSHDF and Authority for Electronic Certification and Cyber Security – AKCESK), has allowed the cyberspace of children to become an unsafe environment that encourages online bullying,  violence, threats and exploitation of children, including sexual violence.

On the eve of the public release of the National Child Cybersecurity Report in Albania, which will be presented at a special event on 7 February 2024, we are sharing some of the most important data and findings that have been identified:

  1. At iSIGURT.al platform there were 244 reports of incidents encountered and reported online by children, parents, teachers, guardians etc., during 2023. Compared to last year, there is a 160 per cent increase in online incidents. If we analyze cases by monthly breakdown, we observe that every month there are at least 20 incidents reported online by children, or a person close to them. 

  2. About 62 per cent of all incidents are reported by girls, and about 34 per cent by boys. In four per cent of cases the person preferred not to identify his/her gender. This data, compared to previous years, is also a novelty, as for the first-time girls reporting almost twice as many incidents compared to boys during their online browsing.

  3. The age group of those that report continues to be led by adolescents aged 15-18, followed by those in the 18-30 and 11-14 age groups. What is striking is that for the first time, there are incidents reported by / for children under the age of 11, about four cases, while in previous years the reporting for these age groups has always been zero.

  4. Tik-tok and Instagram are the two platforms that children have faced most frequently online incidents, 47 and 27 percent of cases respectively, compared to other platforms. This is also an indication of the materials and content that children and teenagers prefer to view or place online.

  5. For the first time since the establishment of the iSIGURT.al, online bullying is the most reported incident by children and adolescents, in about 35 per cent of cases, followed in 21 per cent of cases by hate speech and 15 per cent blackmail and threats online. Online sexual violence, harassment and exploitation has moved to the fourth place, while up to last year was the top incident reported by children and adolescents.

All these data and findings speak volumes to new realities that children and adolescents face. Children through reporting show us that their reality not only online, but also in everyday life, in families, schools and communities, is being challenged by bullying, hate speech, threats and online sexual violence. They speak of a reality where communication, respect, digital skills, and culture are lacking, and where there is lack of online safe spaces.

In this context, our recommendation on the Safer Internet Day is that authorities start taking urgent steps, together with civil society and experts in this area, to build a completely new legal and institutional architecture to enable better protection of children and adolescents in cyberspace. This should ensure that the Internet is a safe space from the very beginning, while the awareness of children and parents in schools, media, and in the community on our shared cyberspace should be an obligation and responsibility for everyone.

This is the reason why this Safer Internet Day we will hold a public discussion among all the institutions, the CSOs and the industry, to share with them information on the National Pact for Protection of Children from Violence and seek to identify how together as society we can move forward to make the online space a better place for children and everyone.


Detajet e Lajmit
February 6, 2024
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