Skopje, 16 November 2022 (MIA) – Minister of Labour and Social Policy Jovanka Trenchevska delivered Wednesday opening address at the Ministerial Conference on Sustainable Migration Governance in the Western Balkans, held in Skopje. Minister Trenchevska referred to the period around 2015, when the Republic of North Macedonia was faced, first of all, with a humanitarian crisis, and also with security crisis in view of cross-border movements, caused by a sudden mass influx of migrants on our southern border. “Over 1 million people were in transit in the period from 2015 to 2016, and we had periods when over 10,000 migrants daily passed through our territory in an attempt to reach the European Union member states.  Supported by our partners UNHCR, IOM and UNICEF, we started by organizing teams of social workers, psychologists, educators and translators who provided organized accommodation, psychosocial support, humanitarian aid in food and shelter, non-formal education and children's corners in collaboration with domestic and international non-governmental organizations,” Trenchevska noted. “Our primary goal was and remains the protection of unaccompanied and separated children where by assigning a guardian and strengthening the mechanisms of alternative forms of care such as foster families and small group homes we tried to provide an environment in which in the shortest possible time it was necessary to identify best interests of the child. The same priority was given to other vulnerable persons such as single women, pregnant women, old and frail persons. The Ministry utilized the lessons learned into a series of documents and policies, with which we began the formation of a knowledge base as part of the future framework for migration management, such as operating procedures and regulations and manuals that are still used today by the expert services and field workers,” Trenchevska said. She underlined that, in the process of managing the crisis situation, in cooperation with the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Health, a certain number of migrants requested asylum, i.e. international protection in the Republic of North Macedonia, as well as that the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, as the main bearer of socio-economic rights, has the greatest responsibility for ensuring access of refugees and people under subsidiary protection to social services, housing, employment and health insurance. These rights are guaranteed by the amendments to the Law on Social Protection and the Law on Health Insurance, which equate persons under international protection with Macedonian citizens in terms of access to rights. While the procedure is ongoing, asylum seekers are placed in the only center for the reception of asylum seekers, which is an institution within the system of theе Ministry of Labour and Social Policy. Minister Trenchevska said that in 2021, The National Strategy for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings and Illegal Migration 2021-2025 with the National Action Plan and the Action Plan for Combating Child Trafficking were adopted, as an integral part of the National Strategy. The Law on Prevention and Protection from Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence was adopted in 2021, in which the trafficking of women and girls is defined as a form of gender-based violence, and the services include accommodation of victims of human trafficking in a Center for victims of trafficking in human beings, she added. With the support of IOM, mobile teams are established in five cities throughout the country: Skopje, Kumanovo, Tetovo, Bitola and Gevgelija. They are comprised of social worker, police officer and representative from the civil sector, she said. In the part of dealing with the shortage of manpower in certain sectors of the domestic labour market, in the past Ministry of Labour and Social Policy made certain changes to the existing Law on the Employment and Work of Foreigners which facilitated the access of foreigners for short-term services that can be performed on the territory of the state in a period not exceeding 60 days. In 2015, the first Resolution on Migration Policy of the Republic of Macedonia 2015-2020 was adopted, and last year the new Resolution on Migration Policy of the Republic of North Macedonia 2021-2025 was adopted. Minister Trenchevska expressed the belief that today's conference will be an incentive for promoting the values of legal migration in our countries and protecting the rights of future "persons on the move", (whether it is voluntary or forced migration), and deterring them from the traps of human traffickers.