Roma Rights Research Articles

Overview of recent cases before the European Court of Human Rights and the European Committee of Social Rights (June 2023 – December 2023)

This case law report discusses two cases before the European Court of Human Rights and two cases before the European Committee of Social Rights. The first case (Pająk and others v. Poland) concerns the introduction of a lower and different retirement age on the basis of sex for judges of the Polish Constitutional Court. In the case X and others v. Ireland, the ECtHR had to examine the extent to which the residence requirement for child benefits violated Article 14 ECHR, read in conjunction with Article 8 ECHR and Article 1 of the Additional Protocol to the ECHR. Child benefits were paid only to claimants who were fully resident in Ireland, and the applicants, who were awaiting a decision on their residency status, did not fulfil this requirement under Irish law. The collective complaint no. 167/2018 (Sindacato autonomo Pensionati Or.S.A. v. Italy) concerned an alleged violation of Article 12 (3) ESC due to the total or partial suspension of the automatic indexation of a large share of pensions in 2011. The measure was extended in 2015 and revised in 2018, taking into account the position of particularly vulnerable persons. In the last case (collective complaint no. 185/2019, European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) v. Belgium), the applicants argued that their right to social assistance had been violated, as they had not received social assistance benefits following a police investigation. The ECSR did not go along with the applicants’ claim.

ПІДХОДИ ОНЛАЙНОВИХ МЕДІА ДО ВИСВІТЛЕННЯ РОМСЬКОЇ ТЕМАТИКИ В ПЕРІОД ПОВНОМАСШТАБНОЇ ВІЙНИ

<p><strong><em>The purpose of the study</em></strong><em> is to outline the approaches used by Ukrainian online publications to cover</em> <em>Roma issues in their materials during a full-scale war. The tasks of the research are to identify trends in the use of language and content elements in media texts, their observance of professional ethics and journalistic standards.</em></p><p><strong><em>Research methodology.</em></strong><em> A combination of methods is used in scientific exploration. In order to identify the language of hostility and Romaphobia in the coverage of Roma topics, a textological analysis of linguistic means in the media was applied. Qualitative content analysis was applied to identify trends in compliance or violation of ethical and professional norms in top online media indexed in the Google search engine. The methods of generalization and induction were applied during the systematization of the analyzed publications and the formulation of research conclusions.</em></p><p><strong><em>Results.</em></strong><em> The full-scale war further exacerbated the already difficult situation with Roma rights in Ukraine. This also applies to the media, which, instead of uniting the Roma national community and promoting its integration, began to separate it from Ukrainians in general. Some local and national media continue to «play» on clickbait headlines, violation of ethical norms through the use of hate speech and Romaphobia, thereby devaluing and humiliating Ukrainian citizens of Roma origin. At the same time, the analysis of media content – the language of publications, their form, content – showed that Ukrainian journalists, in comparison with previous years, began to use correct vocabulary and write balanced materials more often, observing the rules of journalistic ethics and standards of balance and credibility.</em></p><p><strong><em>Novelty.</em></strong><em> This study specifies the approaches of online media in working with Roma topics, allows to follow the latest situation with coverage of the life of the Roma national community during the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war.</em></p><p><strong><em>Practical meaning.</em></strong><em> The results of the work can contribute to the establishment of interaction between journalists and the Roma community in times of full-scale war. In addition, this research can be used directly by Roma activists and community organizations to raise public awareness of Roma culture and identity.</em></p><p><strong><em>Key words:</em></strong><em> Roma, online media, Roma issues, Romaphobia, hate speech, journalistic standards.</em></p>

Engaging with the claim of Roma people through twitter: who is behind the hashtags?

Grassroots Roma communities play a pivotal role in organizing at the grassroots level, advocating for their rights, and challenging anti-Roma sentiment across Europe. Nevertheless, there remains a need for a deeper understanding of how these efforts manifest within the digital landscape. Within the overarching framework of the Narratives4Change project (EU Marie Curie Action, Nr. 841,355), this study seeks to examine the use of Twitter as a platform for advocating Roma-related issues. Specifically, it investigates the types of actors engaged in tweeting about Roma-related content and explores potential variations in profiles (organizations vs. individuals) based on the content being tweeted. The analysis encompasses six Roma-related hashtags spanning the years 2017 to 2020: #RomaLivesMatter, #InternationalRomaDay, #OpreRoma, #OpreRomnia, #MujerGitana, and #RomaWomen. The findings reveal that organizations are most active when employing the hashtags #InternationalRomaDay and #MujerGitana, whereas for the other hashtags studied, individual users dominate. Our data underscore the untapped potential of social media spaces and their ecosystems as strategic tools for advocacy and mobilization in support of Roma rights throughout Europe.

Living in a world of others

The phrase “Roma politics” has come to designate several topics, such as the movement for Roma rights, relations between Roma and non-Roma, or the maintenance of social order in a given group, but these have rarely been addressed together. This is what the present article sets out to do, through the case study of a Roma politician from a southern Romanian town who finds himself in a liminal position between local non-Roma party politics, transnational Romani activism, and the values of his community. He and his fellow Rom negotiate their social relations through an ideology of “help” and “charity,” which I compare to Pitt-Rivers’s notion of “grace,” showing that the decidedly hierarchical political imaginary that suffuses the real-life politics of the Rom is far removed from the abstract apolitical egalitarianism through which transnational institutions and activists frame “Roma politics.”

Realising Roma rights through a high-stakes history test: Secondary school students narrating the Swedish Roma past, present and future

Building on theories of historical justice, reconciliation and transformative change, this article investigates how 293 secondary school students make sense of the difficult past, present and future of the Romani in a national history test. Using qualitative and quantitative text analysis, this study seeks to explore whom students foreground as agents of change in regard to the Roma past, present and future. Considering the past and looking to the future, the inquiry led students to narrate four scenarios: no change; a regression to a past state of no rights; a development for the better; a future free from oppression. While the students underscored the importance of a shared responsibility for Roma rights, they stressed the nation state as the single most important agent of change for Roma rights in the present and future. Against the backdrop of justice and change, this study argues that while students realise and recognise Roma rights through their narrational practices, and thus may become empowered to act for a just future, these narratives also re-establish historical cultural and ethnic group boundaries which potentially may disempower young learners.

Unfinished Business: The Long Road Ahead to Civil Rights and Roma Rights

Unfinished Business: The Long Road Ahead to Civil Rights and Roma Rights

Narrating Roma Rights Activism for the American Public

Narrating Roma Rights Activism for the American Public

Roma Integration ‘All the Way Down’

This article argues that critical Romani studies should examine the EU’s top-down policies of Roma integration as an exercise in federalism, since the EU’s quasi-federalist structure both accommodated and co-opted the fight for Roma rights. To bolster its analysis, this article draws comparisons to the actions of the United States (“U.S.”) federal government during Civil Rights. Of course, both Roma integration and Civil Rights are still inchoate projects. However, the longer arc with which scholars have assessed Civil Rights, including its periods of progress and retrenchment, can help develop a framework for predicting how Romani rights within the EU’s federalist system might fare during similar cycles. Three lessons flow from the comparison. First, integration policies spurred by the top rung of the federalist architecture can foment a populist backlash, especially if disparities in competence or enforcement prompt deficits in legitimacy. Second, governmental efforts are necessary for integration but not sufficient; they must work in tandem with advocacy at the grass-roots level. Finally, pushing federalism “all the way down” to incentivize local experimentation with Roma policies might counteract obstructionism to Roma integration at the national level, but this is not a panacea. Local experimentation might take the form of self-governing districts and economic set-asides, but they can just as easily permit local institutions to perpetuate exclusion and marginalization.

African-American and Romani Filmic Representation and the ‘Posts’ of Post-Civil Rights and Post-EU Expansion

In this article I explore linkages between the evolution of African-American filmic representation and the patterns of Romani representation in films from Central and Southeast Europe (CSEE). More specifically, I use the 1970s Blaxploitation movement and subsequent shift of African-American representation into films reliant on a realist aesthetic to contextualize analysis of the shortcomings of the Civil Rights Movement to provide broad integration for African-Americans. Given other similarities between the racialized positionalities of African-Americans and Roma, I argue that Blaxploitation can illuminate trends in the cinematic depictions of CSEE Roma, since the Roma Rights movement has had to contend with similar shortcomings in achieving political, social, and economic inclusion. The films I analyze in this piece include Roming (2007), Just the Wind (2012), Episode of an Iron Picker (2013), and Bravo! (2015).

Challenging Americanism and Europeanism: African-Americans and Roma in the American South and European Union ‘South’

In this piece, I illustrate how a number of the successes of the Civil Rights movement in the United States have travelled to Europe to advance the cause of Roma Rights, and question if Roma inclus...

An examination of unmet health needs as perceived by Roma in Central and Eastern Europe

Roma comprise the largest ethnic minority in Europe, with an estimated population of 10-12 million. Roughly 50-60% of European Roma live in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. In this study, we set out to quantify and explain disparities in unmet health needs for Roma populations relative to non-Roma populations, using self-reported access to health care. The United Nations Development Programme/World Bank/European Commission 2011 regional Roma survey was used for this study (12 countries, 8735 Roma and 4572 non-Roma living in same communities), with self-reported unmet health need (did not consult a doctor or health professional when they felt it was necessary in past year) as the primary outcome. Multivariable logistic regressions were performed to study the determinants of unmet health need for Roma populations relative to non-Roma populations. Covariates controlled for included sociodemographic characteristics, economic ability, health status and healthcare access. We found in unadjusted models that Roma throughout Central and Eastern Europe, with the exception of Montenegro, are two to three times more likely to report having an unmet health need in the past 12 months than non-Roma living nearby. These disparities largely remain significant, even after adjusting for gender, age, marital status, employment status, education, number of chronic conditions, health insurance status and geographical proximity to medical providers. Controlling for conventional measures of access to medical care (i.e. geographic access to providers and health insurance) does not eliminate observed disparities in unmet need. Although improving funding and routine access to healthcare services for Roma is important in its own right as a means of increasing inclusion, there is a need for detailed assessments of the barriers that exist in each country, within and outside the health system, coupled with measures to implement existing commitments on Roma rights.

Communicating the Victim: Nongovernmental Organizations Advocacy Discourses for Roma Rights

This article is a study of advocacy communication about the Roma (Gypsies) in contemporary Europe. A movement for Roma rights has emerged and solidified since the 1990s, marked by the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, rising neo-fascist anti-Roma discrimination, European Union enlargement, immigration policies, and moral panics. Based on in-depth longitudinal and historical analyses, this study explains the discourse of victimization as constructed in nongovernmental organizations' (NGOs) communication materials. I suggest here that a vehement position against anti-Roma discrimination is rather self-explanatory in post-World War II and post-Communist Europe; but I also critique the role that NGO communication plays within structures that maintain an anti-Roma system in place—by overly victimizing the Roma peoples.

Roma rights and Roma expulsions in France: Official discourse and EU responses

McGarry (2012) in CSP presented significant aspects and dilemmas of European Union (EU) policy towards Roma. Developing points raised there, this article analyses French government statements and practices concerning Roma in the period from summer 2010 to late 2013 as a case study. It puts into relief the contrasts between EU emphasis on Roma as citizens with rights, and official French attitudes which are largely discriminatory. The frequency at the highest levels of the French state of widely-used anti-Roma clichés: ‘alien values’; ‘cultural difference’; threat to property, safety, and health; crime, etc. is highly problematic for the development of citizen rights in the face of both the principle and reality of free mobility within the EU. The change in government in France in 2012 did not end either the discriminatory discourse or the expulsions, which commentators think is due to French and European Parliamentary elections in 2014.

Advocacy Representation and Resistance

This article offers the case study of two nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that have tailored and improved their communication efforts so that politicians, governments, and international organizations hear, and do something about, the plight of the Roma, the most discriminated against European minority. This study examines advocacy publications and describes the discursive repertoire available to European NGOs working for Roma rights post-Communism. The analysis suggests that advocacy communication is fraught with imperfections and therefore resistance takes the shape of ambivalent discourses, both strong and ambiguous, and nonetheless disrupting fixed representations that have motivated historic and contemporary anti-Gypsyism; at the same time, it concludes that the movement for Roma rights is in need of clearer organizational and political mobilization if it is to succeed in the model of other vibrant social movements.

Conflict between Declared Roma Minority Rights and European Practice: Why the Legal Framework Doesn't Work in Reality?

Roma in Europe continue to be victims of racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance. Despite formal-legal efforts and declarations from the European Union, the European Council and EU member states where large numbers of Roma reside, real shifts have yet to occur. This article will attempt to elucidate the factors underlying the actual lack of improvement or even stagnation of Roma and to determine who is responsible for the situation in Europe, where a policy of publicly declared concern for Roma rights appears side by side with blatant violations. Cases of the systematic persecution and degradation of the Roma minority will be highlighted, as will the question of the political obligation to protect human rights on the levels of the individual states, the European Union (EU) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). This article will present the declarative ‘European’ stance on discrimination towards Roma on the one hand and the actual discrimination that occurs outside the framework of projects and programs in some European states on the other. Despite the efforts that have been made, Roma issues are still entrenched in the national, regional and local levels of political, legal, economic and social-educational structures.

The Internal Displacement of the Roma, Ashkali, & Egyptians in the Former Yugoslavia and Their Denial of an Effective Remedy

As a result of the dissolution of Yugoslavia, ethnic conflict in the Balkans was particularly harsh during the 1990’s. Civil war erupted in Bosnia and Herzegovina between Serb, Croat, and Bosniak groups; this war spread easily across the fluid borders of the former Yugoslavia into Croatia and Slovenia. Additionally, Slobodan Milosevic led a bloody campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Albanians of Kosovo. The war-torn streets and the vacant, damaged buildings remain today as evidence of this violent decade. The people who once inhabited these buildings fled amidst the conflict, with many remaining displaced today. One of the hardest hit ethnic groups was the Roma of northern Kosovo. Ethnic groups of the Balkans are divided by language, culture, and religion, and they hold strong prejudices against each other, especially the Roma. That the Roma are geographically interspersed among the other ethnic populations of the region make ethnic tensions more prominent. In this paper, I examine the internal displacement of the Roma in northern Kosovo and the international community’s failure to provide an effective remedy to redress their injuries. In Section II, I discuss the events leading up to the displacement, including the civil strife within the former Yugoslavia and international involvement led by NATO and the UN Security Council. The Security Council established the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) through Resolution 1244, which was legally responsible for safeguarding the rights and civil liberties of the people of Kosovo. I also discuss the Kosovo Liberation Army’s (KLA) attack on the Roma Mahalla and the subsequent internal displacement of the Roma. While the majority of the inhabitants fled the country and region, some stayed behind and were placed in displacement camps of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Conditions in the camps were terribly unhealthy, but the response of the international civil presence, UNMIK, was slow and ultimately unsuccessful.In Section III, I discuss the potential legal obligations of UNMIK by examining the law in place during the UNMIK’s nine-year administration. Despite enacting a comprehensive legal system, which included obligations to comply with numerous international treaties, the administration has refused to be held accountable for its failure to protect Roma rights. I argue that UNMIK should work with the Roma community to find an adequate and sustainable housing solution. Providing housing would not completely ameliorate the Roma community’s economic problems, but it is a step towards rebuilding the Roma Mahalla, which was destroyed during UNMIK’s watch. I also examine whether the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia can and should be held liable for the abuse of the Roma.In Section IV, I focus on the Roma who have resettled in Western Europe. Countries such as France, Germany, and the UK have aided thousands of Roma refugees in compliance with their obligations under the Refugee Convention. Giving temporary shelter for refugees, however, does not equate to citizenship, and these countries have set forth an ambitious forcible return policy of the RAE. I examine the likely consequences of these repatriation agreements between the Republic of Kosovo and governments of Western European countries, which unfairly subjects returnees to the possibility of refoulement as well as placing extreme pressure Kosovo’s limited government resources. Kosovo’s government is making preparations for the inevitable influx of population. Though international aid groups — both governments and NGOs — can and should do more to support Kosovo’s returnees, Western European countries can help the most by delaying these deportations.

Recognizing Formal and Substantive Equality in the Oršuš Case

On 16 March 2010 the ECtHR, in a second-instance judgement in the case of Orsus v. Croatia (hereinafter: the Orsus case), found that the policy of Croatian elementary schools distinguishing among students based on their grasp of Croatian language resulted in discriminatory segregation of Roma students what constitutes a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. This judgment was overwhelmingly accepted by the Roma rights activists across Europe, because it represents a continuum in the ECtHR jurisprudence that condemns the segregation of Roma through education. Namely, in advance to this judgment there was a couple of cases where the ECtHR had established violation of the prohibition of discrimination, that came as a consequence of segregation of Roma children in primary education. All those cases underline the on-going practice of segregation of Roma children in separate classes that is present in several European countries, based either explicitly on their ethnic origin and alleged mental disabilities, or - as it was the case in Croatia - on grounds of their inadequate official language skills. This article examines differing approaches to equality towards the Roma taken by the Croatian Constitutional Court, First Section of the ECtHR and the ECtHR’s Grand Chamber in the Orsus case. We argue that different approaches to equality can provide a useful framework to explain substantially different judgements in this case.

The discrimination discourse in relation to the Roma: its limits and benefits

This article analyses the use of the legal notion of discrimination in relation to the Roma. A definite shift in the discourse of Roma issues is identified which, thanks to the leading role of the European Roma Rights Centre, resulted in the prevalent use of the discrimination paradigm. Focusing on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, I also explore the effects of this categorization of speech on the legal protection for the Roma. In particular, I look at the benefits and limitations of using the discrimination paradigm in relation to the legal protection of the Roma.

The Struggle for Roma Rights: Arguments that Have Worked

The Roma represent the quintessential pan-European ethnic minority, present in almost all Council of Europe member states, but lacking a territory or government of their own. Over the past decade, Roma rights advocates have succeeded in persuading the European Court of Human Rights to significantly expand the protection afforded to victims of violence and discrimination by the European Convention of Human Rights. Three sets of arguments have proven central: (i) process-based claims, relating to positive obligations, burdens of proof, and rebuttable presumptions; (ii) arguments premised on a body of factual evidence that accumulates gradually; and (iii) arguments that address systemic problems, even when focusing on the claims of individual applicants in specific cases. As the Roma rights movement looks to the future, the challenge is increasingly to find arguments that compel reform outside the courtroom in parliaments, local governments, and other centers of political power capable of translating judicial decisions into change on the ground.

Dismantling Segregating Education and the European Court of Human Rights. D.H. and Others vs. Czech Republic: Towards an Inclusive Education?

The case of D.H. and Others v. the Czech Republic1 (hereinafter referred to as the D.H. or ostrava case) is a landmark case brought to the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter referred to as the Strasbourg Court, court or ECtHR) by the Budapestbased European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) on behalf of 18 Roma children from ostrava, the Czech Republic’s third largest city, who, between 1996 and 1999, were placed in special schools for children with learning difficulties either directly or after a period in an ordinary primary school. In the Czech Republic, ‘special schools’ were a category of specialized schools intended for children with mild learning disabilities who were unable to attend ‘ordinary’ or specialized primary schools. By law, the decision to place a child in a special school was taken by the head teacher on the basis of the results of tests to measure the child’s intellectual capacity carried out in educational psychology and child guidance centres, and the decision required the consent of the parent or legal representative of the child concerned. In the D.H. case, the applicants’ parents consented and, in some instances, expressly requested their children’s placement in a special school. Following the unsuccessful filing of complaints in domestic courts in 2000, the applicants turned to the Strasbourg Court, alleging that their assignment to special schools for children with learning disabilities contravened the European Convention on Human Rights (hereinafter referred to as the convention or ECHR). They argued that their placement in special schools amounted to a general practice that had resulted