Pavlina Simonoska Arsikj
Pavlina Simonoska Arsikj is a woman human rights defender working as a communications coordinator at the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Skopje in North Macedonia. Pavlina has been engaged in governmental insitutions during the period of peace building and during the implementation of social reforms in North Macedonia. Since 2009. the woman human rights defender has been part of the civil society sector and has participated in activist associations and initiatives that stand for anti-nationalism, democratization and improvement of the state of human rights in the country.
Human rights defenders in North Macedonia work in an unstable and unpredictable environment. After many years of working in an atmosphere of fear and persecution with defamation campaigns carried out by state and non-state actors portraying HRDs as “state enemies”, the situation drastically improved with the change of government in 2017. While the state has largely changed its attitude towards NGOs and involves them in the process of drafting laws and policies, a lingering culture of impunity, corruption and a general challenge with the implementation of court decisions in the country remains an obstacle to the work of HRDs.
