“Any child can become a victim of human trafficking. Therefore, it is very important to have trained education professionals who can recognise the child trafficking indicators and react timely and adequately” – said Zekjirija Hasipi, the Director of the Bureau for Development of Education, at the occasion of marking the European Anti-trafficking Day in North Macedonia.

The panel discussion gathered 55 participants from among education professionals, social workers and civil society organisations working to prevent and combat child trafficking. Sanja Dimitrijevic , Advisor from the above Bureau explained their action plan 2021-2025 for delivery of cascade trainings on child trafficking in all primary and secondary schools in North Macedonia. With the support of the joint European Union and Council of Europe Horizontal Facility II programme, the Bureau will deliver 80 cascade trainings to education professionals who will then inform and educate children how to protect themselves from the perils of trafficking, with a special focus on the dangers lurking from the internet abuse.

In order to support the process of raising knowledge of education professionals and children on the risks of and ways to protect children from trafficking, the EU/CoE II anti-trafficking action in North Macedonia delivered two Trainings of Trainers (ToT) for the Bureau’s advisors and prepared capacity building, educational and informative materials on child trafficking in multiple languages available at Publications about Combatting Human Trafficking (coe.int).

Sonja Arsovska from the Centre for Social Work Skopje, called upon the education professionals to report suspicious cases of child trafficking to the centers for social work in order to detect and identify potential child victims of trafficking in good time to help them.

“It is of outmost importance to know the procedures in order to react to child trafficking cases. Child trafficking means a tragic end for the victim’s childhood, it robs the child from its future”- warned Stojne Atanasovska Dimishkovska from the NGO Open Gate-La Strada.

 

Among other speakers in the panel discussion were Verica Trajkova from the NGO “For a Happy Childhood” who co-delivered the training of trainers for the Bureau advisors and co-authored the above-mentioned materials on child trafficking, Kjment Amet from the NGO „Luludi„ and Martina Martinovska from the NGO “Macedonian Young Lawyers Association” who implemented grant-based public awareness campaigns to prevent child trafficking among children with disabilities, Roma children and girls. Their campaigns can be find here: Трговија со луѓе – MYLA and ИНФОРМИРАЈ СЕ! СЕКОЈ МОЖЕ ДА БИДЕ ЖРТВА НА ТРГОВИЈА СО ЛУЃЕ! – LULUDI.

The panel discussion on proactive identification and referral of child trafficking victims was organised by the action “Preventing and Combating Human Trafficking in North Macedonia”,in the framework of the joint European Union and Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”, in cooperation with the Bureau for Development of Education under the slogan: “Protect children from trafficking!”.