The key anti-trafficking beneficiaries in North Macedonia reaffirmed the need for concerted efforts to advance further prevention and fight against human trafficking in line with European standards. This was underlined during the Steering Committee meeting of the EU and Council of Europe joint action on “Strengthening anti-trafficking action in North Macedonia”, gathering key representatives from the National Commission for Fight against Human Trafficking, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Justice, the Academy for Judges and Prosecutors, civil society and international co-operation sector. The participants discussed the main results achieved during the implementation of the action, and defined important priorities for the future interventions in the fight against trafficking.
The progress in the implementation of the recommendations set out in the 3rd assessment report of the Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings with respect to North Macedonia was tackled during the meeting. The participants focused on access to free legal aid and compensation for trafficking victims, the criminal justice response to human trafficking and measures to safeguard against child trafficking and labour exploitation.
In the beginning of 2025, the action delivered a training to prevent child trafficking to expert staff of the foster homes for children without parental care, which aimed to enlarge their capacities on the preliminary identification and assistance to potential child victims. In addition, the anti-trafficking action supported the production of training materials for a comprehensive simulation training based on a human trafficking case. In the efforts to raise awareness about the risks of labour trafficking, the grant-based initiative on preventing human trafficking for the purpose of labour exploitation was successfully implemented, which included workshops and social media communication.
The action will continue to provide capacity building, knowledge, and assist local actors in advancing prevention and fight against human trafficking, with a particular focus on the child forced marriages, and improved access to compensation for victims of violent crimes. The future priorities in the opinion of the Steering Committee members include: an outreach to rural areas to raise awareness about the risks of human trafficking; capacity building activities on human trafficking facilitated by information-computer technologies; prevention of child trafficking; and ensuring accommodation to human trafficking victims in accordance with the European standards.
The action “Strengthening anti-trafficking action in North MacedoniaStrengthening anti - trafficking action in North Macedonia” is part of the of the European Union and Council of Europe joint initiative “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Türkiye”.