Forcing minors - girls, but also boys - to get married, mostly in exchange for money or for repaying debts of their parents that can later turn into labour and sexual exploitation, might seem to most of us part of the dim and distant past. Yet, it is present even to this day – including in North Macedonia. While it is difficult to determine the actual scale of the problem, official data show that out of 16 identified child trafficking victims in the country in the past five years, 11 were trafficked for forced marriage.

On 18 October - the European Anti-Trafficking Day, on the stage of the Center of Culture “Marko Cepenkov” in Prilep, members of the drama section at the secondary school “Gjorche Petrov” portrayed the disturbing reality of victims of forced marriages. Showing their trauma, but also the way out. In which we all have a role to play.

The theatre play titled “The Vicious Circle” (Change Your Mind and Stay Outside) was produced under the European Union/Council of Europe project for strengthening anti-trafficking action in the country. Since 2009, North Macedonia has been part of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, committing to fighting human trafficking in general and forced child marriages in particular.

The theatre play was preceded by a radio play, also produced by Radio Pela in order to raise the public’s awareness of the issue and help us all detect and report this type of crime. In order to reach out to a wider audience, in addition to Radio Pela’s website, a QR code leading to the radio play is available also on the websites of several other national and local radio stations. To listen to the radio play, scan this QR code

Radio Pela