Thirty - two journalists and students of journalism completed the third online training on how to report about human trafficking cases in a fact-based and victim-respectful manner. The training, was delivered in cooperation with the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) and the Association of Journalists for Human Rights.
The training sparked great interest among the journalists and students of journalism, who learnt about the European standards and recommendations relevant for freedom of expression, protection of personal data, protection from cybercrime, protection of the security of journalists and their sources of information, succinctly explained by Ms Lejla Dervisagic, the Head of Operations of the CoE Programme Office in Skopje. She underscored that it was in the public interest to report about human trafficking in order to inform and help the public recognise trafficking victims, help trafficking victims and prevent trafficking in human beings.
During this interactive training, the participants not only learnt about the notion, forms and indicators of human trafficking, the right to privacy and other rights of trafficking victims, and ways how to investigate trafficking stories, but were also engaged in recognising the indicators of trafficking and preparing concepts on how to investigate and report about trafficking cases. The participants were presented with a Handbook on the media and human trafficking, as a practical tool to be used when investigating and reporting about human trafficking cases. The Handbook is available in Macedonian and Albanian at https://www.coe.int/en/web/skopje/publications1.
Sixty-six journalists and students of journalism were trained in three trainings on guiding principles on human trafficking and the media. Seven of the trained journalists/media already received grants to write and produce investigative stories about trafficking in human beings. Six more grants will be awarded following a Public Call.
This training was organised as a part of the action” Preventing and Combating Human Trafficking in North Macedonia” under “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey II”, a co-operation initiative co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe, which aims at assisting beneficiaries in South-East Europe to comply with the Council of Europe standards and European Union acquis in the framework of the enlargement process.
