Series:Challenging Discrimination Promoting Equality

A Lesson in Discrimination. Segregation of Romani Children in Primary Education in Slovakia

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

The European Roma Rights Centre and Amnesty International have been monitoring and researching Romani children’s access to education in Slovakia since 1996 and 2006, respectively. This joint report presents a bleak picture: the piecemeal reforms and periodic declarations of intent by successive governments cannot obscure the fact that the discrimination and segregation of Roma in primary education remains widespread and that the Slovak authorities are fundamentally failing to address them. Under national, European and international law, discrimination in the field of education is prohibited in Slovakia. However, in practice, Slovak authorities have not accompanied the ban on discrimination with concrete measures to address or prevent it. In the longer term, the failure to enforce the prohibition of discrimination in access to education has far-reaching consequences for thousands of Romani children who remain segregated in inferior education that traps them in a cycle of poverty and marginalization. Nominal prohibitions are worth little without concerted, proactive measures to address pervasive prejudice and structural flaws that facilitate discrimination and encourage segregation.

CAUSE OF ACTION. Family Life Denied: Overrepresentation of Romani Children in State Care in Serbia

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

Romani children in Serbia are being removed from their families at an alarming rate. The ERRC carried out in-depth research on the situation. We found there are disproportionate numbers ofRomani children in foster care – a third of children in care in Belgrade come from Romani families, for example, yet Roma make up less than two per cent ofthe city’s population. Although Serbia is closing down its institutions for residential care, Romani children are overrepresented there as well. And once Romani children are removed from their families, it’s rare that they return. Why is the right to family life being denied to so many Roma in Serbia? We don’t believe that authorities remove children maliciously. But we do believe that Romani families are victims of indirect discrimination and stereotyping. After centuries of discrimination against Roma, Romani children are more likely to live in inadequate housing, less likely to have parents in employment and may find it hard to access mainstream education. This plays a part in the decision to remove children from their families. As so many children are removed, and so few are able to return, this calls into question the support that these families receive to stay together.

CAUSE OF ACTION. Romani Children in State Care in Nógrád County (Hungary)

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

The Chance for Children Public Benefit Association (Gyerekesély Közhasznú Egyesület) in Hungary conducted a study for the ERRC of children in Nógrád County who have been removed from the care of their families and are in the public care system.2 Nógrád County is located northeast of Budapest, on the border with Slovakia. The study specifically focuses on the county’s child welfare and child protection systems. Through both quantitative and qualitative approaches, researchers collected data on the circumstances of and reasons for taking into care. The research respected the privacy ofthe families concerned while providing a survey of how Romani children so frequently end up in care. By focusing at the county level, the study remained manageable while covering a broad enough area to demonstrate a pattern. The key finding in the study was quantitative: Romani children are vastly overrepresented in the care system. Yet there were other key findings too: in most cases taking children into care does not seem to have been justified. Interviews with key actors also revealed the prejudice that seems to be the main cause ofthe problem.

CAUSE OF ACTION: Families divided: Romani and Egyptian Children in Albanian Institutions

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

There’s a high percentage of Romani and Egyptian children in children’s homes in Albania – a disproportionate number. These children are often put into institutions because of poverty, and then find it impossible ever to return to their families. Because of centuries of discrimination Roma and Egyptians in Albania are less likely to live in adequate housing, less likely to be employed and more likely to feel the effects of extreme poverty. As a result, authorities may take children into care - some parents even ask for this, as they can’t support their family. But under human rights law, poverty shouldn’t be a reason to deny children their right to family life. States must step in to support families to stay together. We’ve researched the situation, and on 6 July 2016 we made our case to the Commissioner for Protection from Discrimination in Albania claiming indirect discrimination against Roma and Egyptian children being taken into State care because of their economic situation and ethnicity. The case (and this report) focuses on one institution, the School Children’s Home in Shkodra, but it reflects the wider situation across the country.

COERCIVE AND CRUEL: Sterilisation and its Consequences for Romani Women in the Czech Republic (1966-2016)

Author(s): Michaela Stejskalová,Elena Gorolová,Marek Szilvási / Language(s): English

The present report examines one of the most serious human rights violations against women – the practice of coercive sterilisation that was aimed at and programmatically performed on Romani women and women with disabilities starting from the 1970s until the 1990s. In Communist Czechoslovakia this practice was legally sanctioned by the 1971 Decree on Sterilisation. This Decree gave public authorities a more or less free rein to systematically sterilise Romani women and women with disabilities without their full and informed consent as a means of birth control. In 1979, Czechoslovakia also initiated a programme of financial incentives for Romani women to undergo sterilisations motivated by the need “to control the highly unhealthy Roma population through family planning and contraception”. An investigation into the practices of involuntary sterilisation of Romani women by the Czech Ombudsperson in 2005 estimated that, since 1972, thousands of women may have been involuntarily sterilised throughout the former Czechoslovakia. Female sterilisation was a state policy in Czechoslovakia until 1993 when the Sterilisations Directive was abolished. However, the practice of sterilising Romani women and women with disabilities against their will did not end with the abolition of the legislation which allowed it, but continued throughout the 1990s and 2000s, with the last known case occurring as recently as 2007.

DESTROYING PROGRESS / ROGRESSING DESTRUCTION: EU Romani Women and Children in France

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

This report specifically addresses the situation of EU Romani citizens from Romania living in informal settlements in France and does not deal with the particular human rights concerns of Roma from other EU and non-EU countries or French Roma, Sinti, Gens du Voyage, Manouche, etc. It presents the results of participatory research conducted in 2014 in six informal Romani settlements in France: Two in Seine-Saint-Denis in the Ile de France region, two in the Urban Community of Lille and two in Marseille. The research methodology was designed to ensure that Romani women played a concrete role in the work being done with respect to their situation.

Divide and Deport

Roma and Sinti in Austria

Author(s): Claude Cahn / Language(s): English

Between 20,000 and 30,000 Roma and Sinti live in Austria today. Some are descended from Roma and Sinti who have lived for generations in Austria, especially in the Burgenland district. Others are migrants or the children or grandchildren of migrants who came to Austria to work and live, attracted by its favorable post-World War II economic climate. Still others are persons receiving or seeking asylum as a result of poverty and ethnic pogroms in contemporary Central and Eastern Europe. This report will deal with this exceedingly diverse group of people as if it were a single social phenomenon. Individual members of the Romani community might not agree with this unified treatment. However, the group as a whole has been forced in recent years to respond to a rise in right wing, racist, xenophobic, or specifically anti-Romani sentiments, actions and legislation targeting Roma as Roma, regardless of internal distinctions. Since at the end of the day all Roma must adjust in some way to the new hostile climate in Austria, this report treats the various abuses of their rights as similar, and their fate as common. The research for this report was carried out over the period of February—May, 1996, in accordance with contemporary methodology in human rights investigation. Victims and witnesses were interviewed, wherever possible, in private. All statements were subject to sceptical scrutiny, and again wherever possible, corroboration was sought from second and third parties. Comment was also sought from competent authorities, although these were, in Austria, singularly unhelpful and, with several notable exceptions, the Austrian police and Interior Ministry did not respond to queries made by the "European Eoma "Eights Center. The purpose of the report will be to show the disastrous consequences on Roma of a series of new laws on legal residence and asylum, ratified between 1991 and 1993. The report will also investigate how the ground was prepared for the systematic exclusion of Roma in Austria through the recognition of a narrow and unrepresentative group of Roma as an Austrian “ethnic group” Volksgruppe). A connection will be made between this systematic exclusion and the recent appearance in Austria of episodes of public violence specifically targeting Roma. Finally, the report will make a series of concrete recommendations to the Austrian government for improving the legal situation of Roma in Austria.

Džuvljarke. Roma Lesbian Existence

Author(s): Vera Kurtić / Language(s): English

The topics I have chosen to discuss in this paper—the existence of women who are both Roma and lesbians, women who have emotional and sexual desires towards other women, and the issue of sexuality in itself— represent subjects which have been historically taboo, despite the fact that sexuality is one of the essential attributes to our very beings. Sexuality is a part of our personal identity; our sexuality informs our connections, relationships, our communities, and our entire society. It is a strong taboo to talk about female sexuality, not only within Romani communities but also more broadly in Serbia. In fact, no matter how ‘developed’ or ‘modern’ Serbian society is considered to be, especially when compared with other societies, or how ‘evolved’, or less patriarchal, Romani communities are now when contrasted with those in the past, women’s sexuality is still a subject that no one likes to discuss.

Hidden Health Crisis. Health Inequalities and Disaggregated Data

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

This report identifies differences between Roma and non-Roma in access to health and in health outcomes, through the collection of disaggregated data in households across Romania in 2013. Some of the differences which emerge are extreme – Roma live on average 16 years less, are more susceptible to serious medical conditions, and are less likely to have access to medical attention or be able to afford the costs of medicines when compared with the rest of Romania’s population. The European Roma Rights Centre has undertaken this research to highlight a key problem in health initiatives for Roma across Europe – a lack of data. Through the lens of health inequality, the report highlights the need for all states to collect and publish disaggregated data in order to measure all inequalities between groups within the state and the effectiveness of any measures taken to address existing inequalities. There is a clear need for disaggregated data in order to demonstrate the scope of discrimination Roma face and to develop and implement targeted policy measures to address this situation.

ITALIA. Profilo del Paese. Rapporto del Centro Europeo per i Diritti deI Rom

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): Italian

There are no precise figures on the current number of Roma, Sinti and Caminanti (RSC) in Italy and the available data on their socio-economic situation are insufficient. Roma in Italy are not a homogeneous group, have different legal statuses as well as various levels of integration in Italian society. According to unofficial estimates there are about 110,000-180,000 Roma in Italy, Italian citizens and migrants (registered), and represent about 0.25% of the total population. Half of them are under 16 and only 0.3% are over 60 years old. These figures are greater if we take into account those Roma who do not have residency and are "illegally" or "irregularly" present in the country. Among the Roma in Italy there are stateless persons in fact from the former Yugoslavia, for which reliable data are lacking. It is estimated that around 70,000 Roma are Italian citizens who have been living in Italy for more than 600 years and are present throughout the country; about 90,000 are Roma who were not born in Italy or born in Italy from immigrant parents, mainly from Eastern Europe. Then there are Roma from the former Yugoslavia who have been living in Italy for over 40 years and have subsequently become Italian citizens. During the wars of the 1990s a new wave of Roma from the former Yugoslavia arrived in Italy to seek asylum; some asylum applications, but not all, were accepted. In the last ten years the Roma, mainly from Romania and Bulgaria, have migrated to an increasing number in Italy, especially after the abolition of the visa regime in 2002 and the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the EU in January 2007.

Još uvek daleko od cilja: Prezastupljenost romske dece u „specijalnim školama” u Srbiji

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): Serbian

This report is elaborated by European Roma Rights Center (ERRC). After attending ERRC training on field research in the area of „education for disadvantaged students“, a team of 16 Roma researchers interviewed a Roma family whose children attend school for disadvantaged pupils in ten locations throughout Serbia. This team consisted of the following members in alphabetical order: Aleksandar Dinić, Aleksandar Makić, Aleksandar Demirović, Branislav Jovanović, Damir Alijević, Dalibor Nakić, Danica Jovanović, Goran Hasanović, Ina Karab, Jašar Ašimović, Jelica Nikolić, Jovan Nikolić Đuričković, Sladjana Teodorović and Slavica Rakić. Angelina Vučurević conducted field data collected by the researchers. Andrea Čolak prepared an analysis of the legal framework, which served as the basis for the relevant chapter. Marija Manić was responsible for collecting statistical data from the school. Tatjana Perić conducted additional interviews with experts and activists, and he also wrote several versions of this report, including Đorđe Jovanović, Stefan Miler (Stephan Müller), Adam Weiss (Adam Weiss), Merien Pauel (Marianne Powell) and Andrea Čolak . Dezierer Gergelj (Dezideriu Gergely) approved the final version of the report for publication.

KNOWING YOUR RIGHTS AND FIGHTING FOR THEM. A Guide for Romani Activists

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): Turkish,English,Romanian,Croatian,Russian,Macedonian,Serbian

LA FRANCE. Rapport du European Roma Rights Centre. Profil de pays 2011-2012

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): French

It is estimated that about 400,000 Roma and related groups (Travelers, Sinti, Manouches, Kalés, etc.) live in France, about 0.64% of the total population of France. This number in-cludes French nationals and migrant Roma. The number of migrant Roma in France is esti-mated at between 15,000 and 20,000. There is no exact data on the number of Roma in France (including migrant Roma) because French law prohibits the recognition of ethnic and cultural minorities. This means that there are no statistics disaggregated by ethnic group.In 2011 and 2012, the ERRC focused on Roma migrants in Romania and Bulgaria. Unless otherwise indicated, the term Roma in this report refers to Roma migrants from these two countries. Roma migrants in France live mainly in the suburbs of major cities, the majority living in the Paris region (Ile de France) and major cities in Marseille, Lille, Lyon, Toulouse and Nantes. Roma often settle in abandoned houses or isolated camps that host groups ranging from a few families to 800 people.According to ERRC studies, Roma are regularly confronted with discrimination at various levels, and the prohibition to collect data on this point masks the extent of such discrimi-nation.

NUCENÉ A KRUTÉ. Sterilizace a její důsledky pro romské ženy v České republice (1966-2016)

Author(s): Michaela Stejskalová,Elena Gorolová,Marek Szilvási / Language(s): Czech

ROMA BELONG - Statelessness, Discrimination and Marginalisation of Roma in Albania

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

The stories of the interviewees set out above demonstrate the essence of the causes and impact of (the risk of) statelessness among Roma in Albania and the intergenerational issues it raises with its consequences for children. Discriminatory attitudes among officials and rigid bureaucratic systems play a role, as does the irregular migration of Albanians to Greece and other countries, and the failure of Albanian authorities to address the documentation challenges that arise. The resultant lack of documentation makes it difficult for affected Roma to establish that they are Albanian, which can result in their children also being denied documents and nationality rights.

ROMA BELONG. Statelessness, Discrimination and Marginalisation of Roma in the Western Balkans and Ukraine

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

This report synthesises the findings of the «RomaBelong» project, which set out to explore the nexus between statelessness, discrimination and marginalisation of Romani people in European Union candidate and neighbourhood countries in the Western Balkans and Ukraine. It draws on data from interviews with Roma individuals and associations, state actors, NGOs, journalists and international agencies to identify and analyse the main factors contributing to the risk of statelessness and its impact on the daily lives of Romani people in the region. As a partnership between both international and national organisations, those focused on statelessness on the one hand, and Roma rights on the other, the project draws on different fields of expertise to make recommendations to national and regional stakeholders for concrete action to address the issues it uncovers.

ROUMANIE. Rapport du European Roma Rights Centre. Profil du pays 2011-2012

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): French

The country profile of Romania focuses on housing and evictions as a cornerstone of the work of the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC). This profile also looks at the following aspects: displacement and migration, women's and children's rights and violence against Roma, including police mistreatment and anti-Roma statements by senior officials, members from the government or politicians. The information is up to date in April 2013. This publication and related research has been funded by various funding bodies of the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC), including the Swedish International Development Agency, the Open Society Foundations and the Sigrid Rausing Trust. The content of the publication is the sole responsibility of the ERRC. The opinions expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect those of the donors.

The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC)

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) is an international public interest law organisation working to combat anti-Romani racism and human rights abuse of Roma through strategic litigation, research and policy development, advocacy and human rights education. In January 2016, the ERRC responded to the European Commission’s request for assessments of progress made by member states in implementing the EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies (NRIS) in 2015.

THE FRAGILITY OF PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE. A Preliminary Account of Child Protection Practice with Romani and Traveller Children in England

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

To examine the concerns that have been listed more fully, the authors of this report have been commissioned by the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) to carry out a preliminary study into the scale and nature of child protection practice with Romani and Traveller children in England. Specifically, the study aimed to: 1. Highlight the principal reasons for child protection involvement with Romani and Traveller children; 2. Map the placement type and legal status of Romani and Traveller children involved in child protection systems; 3. Examine the reasons for the placement of Romani and Traveller children in state care; 4. Explore how child protection professionals describe their work with Roma children; and, 5. Shed some light on the experiences of families who have experienced child protection involvement.The findings presented in this report reflect data that has been gathered in four separate ways. First, data was gathered through a series of Freedom of Information Requests to the Department of Education. Second, data was gathered from 137 questionnaires completed by child protection professionals working in England. Third, data was gathered from focus group interviews with 155 child protection professionals working in England. Finally, data was also gathered from two families who have experienced child protection involvement in family life.

THIRSTING FOR JUSTICE. Europe’s Roma Denied Access to Clean Water and Sanitation

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

This unique report by the European Roma Rights Centre provides compelling evidence that, throughout several States and regions where safe water supply and sanitation services are available to almost every household, Roma populations are systemically disadvantaged in their access to these services. Evidences gathered from Albania to France reveal shocking disparities of the conditions endured by Roma as compared to the rest of the population. In this respect, the report’s conclusions highlight a concerning situation of widespread, deeply rooted social exclusion and ethnic discrimination regarding Roma’s access to these essential services.