One young girl from the Gypsy family settlement Orizari was only 14 years old when she left home, never to return again. Everyone had given her up for being dead. However, her best friend knew the truth that she had met a boy from Switzerland on the internet. The boy had come down to meet her and she went with him to Switzerland. The friend remained silent and spoke up only when she realized that her friend was not with the boy. She decided to tell her friend’s parents the truth when she realized that her friend was not married to the guy and she was not in Switzerland.

The man who was posing as a boy from Switzerland had taken the girl to Germany and sold her there. Many girls fall prey to such trafficking in Macedonia.

Macedonia’s Interior Ministry’s Department for human trafficking confirmed the growing problem. The chief of this unit, Sande Kitanov said that Macedonia’s growing trade in children. He said that matter that was of concern was that the Macedonian side of the transit trade in children has grown in the country of origin.

Swiss NGOs - Terres de homes, in cooperation with the NGO Open Gate in Macedonia for three years conducted a project for raising awareness among the population about the risk and consequences of trafficking. Because of the research Terres des hommes, could initiate monitoring in Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo for the implementation of the instruments installed by UNICEF, relating to the protection of trafficking minors. Based on the results of monitoring, Macedonia received a positive evaluation of regulation, after the new penal code was introduced to address specifically offenses related to trafficking in minors. It carries a minimum sentence of 8 years in prison.

In Macedonia the way young girls are trafficked follows a classic pattern involving underage marriages, fraud, false promises and most of these girls come from uneducated and poor backgrounds.