On 2 April 2019, twenty-five educational professionals from the municipality of Centre, Skopje attended a one day pilot training on detecting and preliminary identifying child victims of trafficking for the purpose of labour exploitation. The aim of the workshop was to enhance the knowledge of the primary and secondary school teachers, school psychologists and other education professionals about the child trafficking, referral mechanism and assistance to child victims of trafficking.

The training was organised jointly with the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy as a follow-up to the February workshop aimed at school directors. The representative of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy provided an overview of the National Referral Mechanism. Furthermore, a representative of the NGOs La Strada/Open Gate participated in the training and delivered a session on assisting and supporting child victims of trafficking for the purpose of labour exploitation. Furthermore, the indicators on detecting and preliminary identifying such victims accompanied by concrete examples and case studies were discussed. These indicators were printed under the action “Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Human Beings” in 2018 and were further distributed to the participants during the training.

“We need more initiatives like this one so that children - potential trafficking victims - can be identified and helped in a timely manner”, stated Vesna Kukovska, the representative of the Centre municipality who helped to organise the pilot trainings for school directors and education professionals from her municipality.

The training was organised under the action “Preventing and combating trafficking in human beings”, which is part of the joint programme “Horizontal Facility for Western Balkans and Turkey”, co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe, and implemented by the Council of Europe.