Citizens for Change #25

APRIL - JUNE 2026 | DOWNLOAD PDF

When Efforts Last – Results Arrive

More than three years. That is how long it took for a demand for a basic right – paid maternity leave for women farmers – to develop from a public campaign, via a parliamentary debate, to a full verdict that determined that there was discrimination and obliged the government to change the Law on Health Insurance. And the procedure is on-going.

Civica Mobilitas “entered” this story in 2023, when it supported Coalition MARGINI “Sexual and Health Rights of Marginalised Communities” and its partners in their activities for advocating for paid maternity leave and leave due to sickness or injury, intended for more than 14,000 women registered as individual farmers. With public events, policy analyses, campaign and communication with the MPs, the organization has significantly raised the awareness about the problem. There was a draft-law submitted for changes to the Law on Health Insurance, and all MPs voted in favour of the need for its adoption. The documentary campaign “Fireflies of Hardship”, in which the women farmers themselves told about their everyday struggle made the problem visible for the public and the European Commission which added it to the progress report for the country.

Still, the progress stopped before the very specific change – the law was not adopted. The success was partial: awareness was increased, and the political will was expressed; yet, the right remained unrecognized.

Civica Mobilitas continued to support the organizations in their fight for resolving this problem. With the project of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights and its partners new attempts were made. The Organization and the Commission for Prevention and Protection from Discrimination (CPRD) submitted a public interest lawsuit before the Basic Civil Court in Skopje, against the Government and the Ministry of Health. The Court reached a verdict in which it found indirect, intersectional and continued discrimination against individual women farmers and obliged the authorities to initiate changes to the Law on Health Insurance.

This example once again confirms the need for a longer-term support to CSOs, stressing that longer-term support is more important than the short-term interventions, especially when it comes to advocacy, awareness raising or capacity building. Changes in policies and social views rarely come from a single project – they demand endurance, continuity and trust between the donor and the organization, between the organization and its target groups. The support of the Swiss Government via Civica Mobilitas enables this continuity, in this case, to walk the path from campaign, advocacy to a court process. These examples make the role of CSOs clearer to the public, as well as their contribution to the changes in the society.

In this issue of “Citizens for Change” you can also see other achievements of CSOs, without exception connected to the needs of the citizens.

Have a pleasant reading!