TEMIS - Association of Women Lawyers in Macedonia

The focus of interest is the problem of people trafficking

The Association of Women Layers in the Republic of Macedonia was founded on 17 April 2002. Its goal is to provide professional training and exchange of experiences for promotion of the women status in the social and political life. At the moment, TEMIS has 120 members, most of them being lawyers. The goal of their work is to protect the human rights; promote the women status in the social life; eliminate all forms of violence over women; legal reform regarding the people trafficking, harmonization of the Macedonian legislation with the EU standards. For the realization of their tasks and goals, the association established five commissions: for cooperation with government institutions and the NGO sector, for relations with international legal associations and institutions, for education, for fight against people trafficking and protection of victims rights of any kind of violence and for the normative activity and harmonization of the national legislation with the European legislation. Each commission has working groups that take concrete activities in their field, respectively.

The association is supported and assisted by ABA CEELI - American Legal Association/Central and Eastern Europe Legal Initiative. Since its foundation, most of the TEMIS activities have been dedicated to the problem of people trafficking in Macedonia. Their ongoing activity is the realization of the project Legal Education of Law Student on People trafficking supported by the Institute for Sustainable Communities. The six-day training will inform the law students, members of ELSA (University of St. Cyril and Methodius, Skopje) and ILSA (SEE University, Tetovo) on the growing problem, the legal solutions, the situation in Macedonia and the region. Participants in the project are educated on the flow of procedure in the solution of the problem, how to notice the irregularities, if any, in order to establish a group of monitors as a further step, who will be completely familiarized with the problem of people trafficking and who will be able to take part in the following project - All for a Just Trial, realized by the Coalition of civil society organizations All for a Just Trial, whose member is TEMIS.

On the invitation of MTSP, TEMIS attends roundtables and gives expert comments on proposal (draft) laws, cooperates with NGOs which take activities for promotion of women rights, and realizes contact with the Sector for Eurointegrations, etc. TEMIS publishes a periodical newsletter, which contains information regarding the Association's activities.

Their vision is "Macedonia should be a place where women will live released from poverty, inequality and violence".