Thank you phen for sending it on.
http://golden-zephyr.tumblr.com/post/32005224190/i-was-tired-of-seeing-these-but-without-a-romani
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
'GYPSIES' ON HALLOWEEN
Thank you phen for sending it on.
http://golden-zephyr.tumblr.com/post/32005224190/i-was-tired-of-seeing-these-but-without-a-romani
PINEHURST SCHOOL.
Here we go again. Pinehurst School is under attack again. I wrote a blog post last year and together, we saved Pinehurst (then called Seattle Alternative School #1.
I just don't know how to tell you what a valuable school this is. It is everything we espouse that we expect in a school: dedicated teachers and staff, at risk students who thrive in this atmosphere of respect and education.
I have spoken at Pinehurst/Alternative School #1 many times. Each experience is richer than the one before. The students are so totally involved and receptive to my stories about the Romani people worldwide and my own experiences as a Romani in the United States, and my experiences as a 'forgotten child'.
I received a message today from one of the teachers that told me that last week a substitute teacher used the word 'gypped' and was kindly yet emphatically, confronted by the students about the use of that word.
The following is some postings by a friend at Pinehurst. Please support this school and send emails demanding that this effective, successful, and supportive school not be lost.
This is the type of educational institution we should be supporting, not threatening.
It should be treated as a model, not a pariah.
Thanks,
Morgan
PLEASE KEEP THIS SCHOOL ALIVE.
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As many of you already know,
Pinehurst's future seems uncertain. BEX IV Levy folks have proposed that the
District demolish the Pinehurst building and re-locate Jane Addams K-8 on the
Pinehurst site after a $20 million makeover. This proposal does not include a
plan for Pinehurst. If you'd like to support our alternative and experiential
Pinehurst program, please email Board members in advance of their November 6
vote on the proposal. Viva Pinehurst!
Guys, we all need to email these people so we can convince
them not to close Pinehurst. It would also help if parents did it
too:
schoolboard@seattleschools.org
capacity@seattleschools.org
sharon.peaslee@seattleschools.
sherry.carr@seattleschools.org
harium.martin-morris@seattlesc
schoolboard@seattleschools.org
capacity@seattleschools.org
sharon.peaslee@seattleschools.
sherry.carr@seattleschools.org
harium.martin-morris@seattlesc
EZRA LEVANT AGAIN
HATE CRIME INVESTIGATION LAUNCHED SURROUNDING EZRA LEVANT BROADCAST
BY ERIC MARK DO
MEMORIAL IN GERMANY
FROM THE LETHBRIDGE HERALD
http://www.lethbridgeherald.com/world-news/germany-inaugurates-memorial-to-the-nazis-gypsy-victims-pledges-to-fight-discrimination-20121024.html
BY GEIR MOULSON, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PHOTO People attend the inauguration ceremony at the memorial to the murdered European Sinti and Roma who were persecuted as 'Gypsies' in Berlin, Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2012. The memorial was designed by artist Dani Karavan consists of a well with a retractable stele with panels carrying information on the persecution and mass murder of this minority under the National Socialist regime. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
BERLIN - Germany opened a long-awaited memorial Wednesday to the hundreds of thousands of Gypsies, or Roma, who were killed by the Nazis in what one survivor called "the forgotten Holocaust" - and pledged to fight the discrimination the minority still faces in Europe today.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Joachim Gauck inaugurated the memorial at an official ceremony in Berlin's Tiergarten park. Designed by Israeli artist Dani Karavan, it features a water-filled basin with a retractable, triangle-shaped column at its centre that will be topped by a fresh flower every day.
Panels detailing the Nazis' persecution of the minority surround the memorial, which is located across the road from the Reichstag, Germany's Parliament building, and close to memorials to the Nazis' Jewish and gay victims that have been inaugurated in recent years.
Gypsies were subjected to racial discrimination from the early days of Nazi rule. Before Berlin hosted the 1936 Olympic games, hundreds were rounded up and interned; and in 1938, SS chief Heinrich Himmler set up a central office for the persecution of Gypsies - also known as Sinti and Roma.
It's not clear exactly how many Gypsies were killed during the Holocaust. Estimates range from 220,000 to more than 500,000.
Their fate drew little attention as post-World War II Germany began to come to terms with the Nazis' crimes, primarily focusing on the slaughter of some 6 million Jews.
Only in 1982 did West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt publicly declare that Sinti and Roma "were persecuted for reasons of race. These crimes constituted an act of genocide."
Plans to build the Berlin memorial go back to 1992, though the project was delayed by disputes over the design and other matters.
"Unfortunately it is too late now for many survivors of the Nazi terror," said Zoni Weisz, a Gypsy who recalled escaping deportation to Auschwitz from the Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands in 1944, at age 7, with the help of a policeman.
"But for the few who can see this today, and for their families, this memorial is in my eyes a kind of redress," he said at the inauguration ceremony. Weisz's mother and two younger siblings were killed at the Auschwitz death camp.
The head of Germany's Central Council of Sinti and Roma, Romani Rose, said the new memorial embodies the need to fight anti-Gypsy prejudice in the same way as anti-Semitism.
"In Germany and in Europe, there is a new and increasingly violent racism against Sinti and Roma," he said. "This racism is supported not just by far-right parties and groups; it finds more and more backing in the middle of society."
The minority faces discrimination in Europe's ex-communist east and elsewhere on the continent. In August, police raids in Paris and other French cities dismantled camps used by Roma from Eastern Europe and left hundreds without shelter.
Weisz said that "society has learned nothing, almost nothing - otherwise we would be treated in a different way now."
"I hope that, with the inauguration of this memorial, what I call the forgotten Holocaust will no longer be forgotten and will get the attention it deserves," he added.
Merkel stressed the need to protect minorities, which she said "enrich the diversity of Germany."
"Let's not beat about the bush - Sinti and Roma often suffer from marginalization, from rejection ... Sinti and Roma have to fight for their rights even today," she said. "So it is a German and European duty to help them in this, wherever and within whatever country's borders they live."
The Gypsy memorial's opening follows the unveiling in 2005 of Berlin's memorial to the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust, a vast field of concrete slabs; and the inauguration in 2008 of the memorial to the long-ignored gay victims of the Nazi regime.
A further memorial is planned to victims of the Nazi program of euthanasia of the mentally ill and others deemed "unworthy of life."
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
GAG ME WITH STEREOTYPES
I felt compelled to post this in order to show how insulting 'dressing up like a Gypsy' is. What a perpetuation of gross stereotypes. And a special thanks to my BFGW.
Morgan
This is especially interesting in comparison with the previous post on the students project WE'RE A CULTURE, NOT A COSTUME.
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Gypsy Costumes Popular At Yandy.com this Halloween
FROM YANDY.COM
Big, fat, gypsy costumes are a hit this Halloween at Yandy.com.
Check out http://www.yandy.com/Gypsy-Costumes.php
to see what these people call Gypsy costumes.
Monday, October 22, 2012
SPAM
If any sneak by me, go to those websites at your own risk. I have been hacked too often.
Morgan
PHOTO www.evolutionaryparenting.com
AS HALLOWEEN APPROACHES
BY EMANUELLA GRINBERG, CNN
FROM CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/26/living/halloween-ethnic-costumes/index.html
(CNN) -- Thinking about donning a kimono to dress like a geisha for Halloween, or a Mexican mariachi suit?
Students from Ohio University have a message for you: "We're a culture, not a costume."
With ethnic and racial stereotypes becoming increasingly popular Halloween costume themes, members of the school's Students Teaching About Racism in Society are launching a campaign to make revelers think twice before reducing a culture to a caricature, the group's president said.
Posters from the campaign are expected to go up on the Athens, Ohio, campus Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the images are making the rounds online, raising debate over whether it's ever OK for people to paint their faces black, impersonate a racial stereotype for fun, and where to drawn the line.
It's a seasonal point of controversy, but even after widely publicized controversies such as the "Ghetto Fab" wig at Kohl's and Target's illegal alien jumpsuit, costumes of stereotypes abound. On Google's shopping section, several pages of "Mexican costume ideas" are available, from "Mexican donkey costumes" to sexy serapes and tequila shooter girls.
The ad campaign from Ohio University show students holding photos of different racial and ethnic stereotypes in costume: an Hispanic guy with a picture of the Mexican donkey costume, an Asian girl with an image of a Geisha, a Muslim student with a photo of a white guy wearing a traditional ghutra and iqal over his head, bombs strapped to his chest.
"During Halloween, we see offensive costumes. We don't like it, we don't appreciate it. We wanted to do a campaign about it saying, 'Hey, think about this. It's offensive,'" said senior Sarah Williams, president of STARS.
"The best way to get rid of stereotypes and racism is to have a discussion and raise awareness, which is what we want to do with this campaign," said Williams, who is black and plans on dressing as singer Janelle Monae for Halloween.
The most obvious offense occurs when someone who's not black decides to go blackface, because of the historical context, she said. But the message applies to all races and stereotypes -- and not just during Halloween.
The dean of students fully supported the campaign, calling it a "clean, succinct" way of delivering an important message.
"We've always tried to get a handle on what it means to be thoughtful and appropriate when it comes to talking to students about choosing costumes and making the best decisions for celebrating Halloween," Ryan Lombardi said.
"I think it's a clean way of raising awareness of how the costumes you choose might be offensive. In many cases, students aren't doing it maliciously, but they might not realize the consequences of their actions on others."
The campaign has gone viral, landing on blogs and other schools' online publications. So far, the response in the editorial sections has been positive. But in the comment sections, not everyone thinks it's a message that needs to be reinforced.
"Suddenly, I am overcome with the urge to dress up as the Frito Bandito this year," one comment on the Arizona Daily Wildcat's piece on the campaign said. "Guys & girls -- Halloween is just bit of fun. Dead guys don't come back to life and eat people. There are no hot blonde lady cops in tiny uniforms that demand to 'frisk' you. Kimonos are OK even if 'Asians' don't wear them on a daily basis."
But others think it's a message that needs to be repeated.
"I think it's almost impossible to be ironic while being racist, so irony is lost," said Jelani Cobb, a professor of Africana studies at Rutgers University and the author of "The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress."
"To treat a character like Batman or Superman as a Halloween costume is one thing, but to treat an entire ethnicity as a costume is something else. It suggests that people conflate the actual broad diversity of a culture with caricatures and characters."
While Italian-Americans can be stereotyped as gangsters and Irish-Americans as hard drinkers, there are no pervasive stereotypes for whites on the same level that allow for them to be caricatured as a Halloween costume, Cobb said.
"The more we look at people as caricatures, the harder it is to operate as democracy," he said. "What underlies this kind of costuming is the belief that these people aren't quite equal to what we are or aren't as American as we are, or that you as a person who's not a member of that group should be able to dictate how painful the stereotype should be."
Sunday, October 21, 2012
SLOVAKIA
When ‘decent’ is no longer decent
EDITORIAL
22 Oct 2012
FROM THE SLOVAK SPECTATOR
PHOTO www,gitanos.org
These ‘decent’ people know instantly what is wrong and what is right: they do not seem to be bothered by public figures and politicians suspected of cronyism and mismanagement of public funds who escape punishment despite having possibly deprived the state coffers of millions of euros, but they do have a plan for those who they say are sponging off the state.
It seems too that a huge number of these ‘decent’ people are more likely to vote for those who would promise an iron fist for the Roma rather than weed out corruption. And with this knowledge it seems the ‘decent’ politicians readily adjust their vocabulary to match their ‘decent’ campaigns with what actual ‘decent’ people want. Who are the ‘decent’ people?
People associated with Marián Kotleba’s extremist People’s Party – Our Slovakia have shown up at two recent anti-Roma rallies: a rally organised by the Say Stop to Anti-Socials in Your Town civic initiative in Partizánske, on September 29 and a rally organised by Oskar Dobrovodský, a resident of Malacky who has had widely reported problems with his Roma neighbours, that took place in Bratislava on October 13. Marián Mišún, who ran as a candidate for Kotleba’s party in the March 2012 parliamentary elections, was co-organiser of the Bratislava event.
On the same day that they marched for a ‘decent life’ these ‘decent’ people commemorated the 125th birthday of Jozef Tiso, the Catholic priest who was president of the Nazi-allied Slovak wartime state responsible for deporting tens of thousands of Slovakia’s Jews to Nazi death camps, among other atrocities.
Kotleba has a long record of anti-Roma rallies: back in 2009 in Šarišské Michaľany, a village in eastern Slovakia, he marched against what he called ‘Roma Terror’, claiming that he was taking action because of the state’s inactivity.
This year, on September 29, Kotleba and about 300 extremist followers marched on a Roma settlement adjoining Krásnohorské Podhradie, where he had acquired a parcel of land on which the houses of several Roma families currently stand.
Mišún himself on October 13 described the ‘decent’ march as a fiasco because the participants ultimately clashed with Anna Belousovová, head of the Nation and Justice party, and one-time ally of Ján Slota but later his arch-enemy in the fight over the leadership of the nationalist Slovak National Party (SNS). Mišún commented that it is unfortunate when nationalist forces are splintering, SITA newswire reported.
Belousovová’s level of ‘decency’ when it comes to the Roma issue could be easily demonstrated by the shameless billboard campaign that the SNS chose back in 2010. It featured a large, bare-chested Roma man whose image had been digitally altered with a thick gold chain around his neck and tattoos to better fit the common stereotype of this particular minority. The SNS picked the slogan “so that we do not feed those who do not want to work” to achieve the desired effect.
The organisers of the most recent march, Mišún and Dobrovodský, argued that they are not extremists and that they are distancing themselves from “any form of unjustified racism”, the TASR newswire reported. Well, there is no ‘decent’ form of racism, and even though racism can take a more sophisticated form, it is still racism and thus is unacceptable in any society which claims to be democratic and to have respect for human rights.
People blinded by their frustration fail to recognise that they and their situations matter very little to these ‘decent people’ who would use any occasion to express their intolerance and hatred towards the Roma, something which does not contribute to any long-term solution.
Instead they provide forums for extremists and thus surrender the chance to be considered decent in the original sense of the word.
DALE FARM REVISITED
UK MINISTRY STORMED
IN DALE FARM PROTEST
FROM TRAVELER SOLIDARITY
The UK Communities Ministry at Eland House,
London, was stormed yesterday (19 October) by 250 Dale Farm protesters
demanding an end to evictions. Angered by
minister Eric Pickles' latest round of anti-camping
legislation, they scaled the entrance to
raise Romani flags and blocked exit from the building for
several hours. There were a number of
arrests.
The demonstration, held on the anniversary of
Britain's biggest-ever eviction, the riot
police-led clearance of 80 families from the Dale Farm
estate, also marked 50 years of civil rights
struggle
by a now much enlarged Roma and Traveller
population estimated at 400,000.
Main organizers, the Traveller Solidarity
Network, have announced the start of a country-wide campaign to oppose forced dispossessions and
support the Roma movement for
self-determination, poliferating across Europe in response to
the heaviest repression since the
1930s.
The UK, once believed to be a zone of
comparative tolerance, has been shown up as
a hot-of bed anti-Roma racism and violence. Thousands of
established Romani families have been turned
off
their own land and recently arriving Roma
swept from central city
streets.
Frank Gavin, who heads PAAD, a Pavee
organization, said in an interview before the demonstration their corib [fight] began in the 1960s
with the legendaryoccupation at Cherry Orchard, Dublin. His
uncle of the same name took part, as did the
grandparents of Dale Farm residents.
"Cherry Orchard was what you'd call a squat.
We didn't own the land," Frank explained.
"Half a century later that ground at Dale Farm was
purchased and developed and made into a
real, happy
community. But they smashed it up all the same."
Pickles told the BBC earlier that he was giving further
powers to local authorities to block illegal
encampments. He said Travellers attempting to
set up their own places without planning
permission
would face instant stop notices and daily
fines.
"Dale Farm must never be allowed to happen
again," the minister commented, while
admitting that nothing had been achieved by the 10
million euro operation. He said planning
laws had to be enforced but he expected local
authorities to provide accommodation where a
traditional need could be proved.
The test of that statement will come next
month when Basildon Borough Council meets to
decide what action to take against families who
continue to live on aprivate entrance road
to the estate. It must also respond to the fourth planning application in ten years submitted for the
building of a mobile-home park for Dale Farm families.
For more information
visit:
SPORTS NOT RACISM
FROM POLICY CENTER FOR ROMA AND MINORITIES
http://www.policycenter.eu/en/english-love-sport-no-racism-no-violence
Embassy of Netherlands, Romanian Football Federation and Policy Center for Roma and minorities and 14 children from a disadvantaged background joined in during an event meant to raise awareness about the need for fair-play and fighting against racism and violence prior the football match Romania – Netherlands.
The Ambassador congratulated the Policy Center for Roma and Minorities for the Alternative Education Club (AEC), which won this year’s UNICEF ‘Sport for Education’ Award at the Beyond Sport awards ceremony in London before the Olympic Games. Started with a grant from the Dutch Embassy and support from UEFA the AEC works with hundreds of children from disadvantaged areas.
The 14 children (mostly Roma) received tickets to the football game Romania Netherlands taking place in the same day on the National Arena (Bucharest).
The Dutch Ambasador, Matthijs van Bonzel and former Romanian National-team players, Miodrag Belodedici and Daniel Prodan played with the children. UEFA’s United Against Racism T-shirts and Respect caps and footballs were used during the playing time.
During the game (over 55.000 people attended) we launched a video-clip we developed together with the Romanian Football Federation with help from the European Commission. The video-clip is a direct product of the REACT campaign ( see website http://www.ergonetwork.org/ergo-network/campaigns/react/)l.
Images from the stadium and the video-clip can be seen here LoveFootball
These actions are a continuation of our involvement in fighting racism in the Romanian stadiums – the game Steaua -CFR Cluj that took place at the beginning of the month was preceded by a display against racism and violence. Both teams wore United Against Racism T-shirts and anti-racist announcement were made during the entire game- an action organised with the help of UEFA and Football Against Racism in Europe ( FARE) -
see NoRacism
ROMANI WOMEN
FROM ANMESTY INTERNATIONAL
PHOTO www.time.com
Statement for Working Session 6:
Roma and Sinti, with a focus on empowerment of Romani women to access their human rights
Amnesty International wishes to highlight the human rights violations experienced by Romani women as a result of forced evictions, as well as other violations of the right to adequate housing. The organization calls upon OSCE Participating States to take all necessary measures to address these concerns as a matter of priority.
The information and analysis in this statement is based on Amnesty International’s research on the right to adequate housing and forced evictions of Roma in
France, Italy, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia.
As the Director of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the OSCE, Ambassador Lenar
čič, highlighted in April 2012, "[t]he dire living conditions and lack of a registered legal place of residence endured by many of Europe’s Roma have a profoundly negative effect on all aspects of their lives.
These negative effects result in numerous human rights violations, including violation of the right to adequate housing. The impact of these human rights violations is particularly severe on Romani women who face discrimination not only because of their ethnicity but also their gender.
Amnesty International has been working with Romani women living in camps and informal settlements across the region, who are speaking up and are fighting for their rights, and the rights of their families and communities. In many cases, Romani women, despite the multiple obstacles they face, are at the forefront of campaigning to end forced evictions and segregation, and should be further empowered and supported to do so.
Forced evictions
Across Europe, Romani communities continue to face discrimination and serious obstacles in securing their rights to housing, health care, education and work.
For many Roma, who are unable to afford private accommodation, or who are discriminated against when seeking to access it, social housing represents the only avenue of securing their right to adequate housing. Unfortunately, however, the lack of social housing programmes for Roma, or the exclusion of Roma from them, are recurring problems throughout Europe.
Millions of Roma are therefore forced to live in segregated settlements or slums, often without access to running water or electricity. They are at greater risk of illness, but less able to access the health care they need. Lacking security of tenure in informal settlements, Roma communities remain at risk of forced evictions.
According to international human rights standards, evictions may be carried out only as a last resort, once all other feasible alternatives have been explored and genuine consultation has taken place with communities, and only after appropriate procedural and legal safeguards are in place. Governments must also ensure that no one is rendered homeless or vulnerable to other human rights violations as a consequence of an eviction.2
In most cases concerning Roma, however, local authorities fail to put in place the required legal and procedural safeguards.
For example, the requirement for genuine consultation with affected communities is often omitted in national laws. As a result, local authorities frequently ignore this obligation. In many cases, local authorities simply inform affected persons about the eviction once the decision has been made and then proceed with demolitions. Despite the requirement in international standards that for consultation on eviction to be effective, women must be included, through adoption of special measures if necessary, even where some form of consultation with Romani communities takes place, it is rare for Romani women to be effectively included.
For example, in the recent case of evictions in Baia Mare, Romania, in May 2012, Amnesty International was concerned that the relocation had not been preceded by genuine consultation of all affected individuals and that the alternatives provided were inadequate. During Amnesty International’s visit in May 2012, many residents with whom the organization spoke did not have detailed information about the proposed locations or the terms of their resettlement. Local authorities had visited Craica, but many residents said they had not been given the opportunity to raise their concerns directly with them and that negotiations were being undertaken only with self
‐proclaimed representatives of the community. Amnesty International expressed concern that the consultation process had not allowed for the genuine participation of all individuals potentially affected, including as a result of a climate of alleged intimidation by local political leaders.
The organization was particularly concerned about the disadvantaged position in which single Romani mothers and women
headed households found themselves with regard to the consultation process. One woman from the Craica settlement in Baia Mare told Amnesty International: "Nobody listens to me. Whenever I try to speak, they tell me to shut up." The woman told Amnesty International she was afraid of self‐proclaimed leaders who try to speak for the whole community, she is constantly threatened and she felt unprotected as she did not have a man in the house.
Authorities also often make no attempt to offer Roma residents adequate alternative housing and many are rendered homeless and continue to live in temporary and makeshift accommodation. Many are also likely to be repeatedly evicted.
Inadequate housing offered for resettlement
When the authorities offer alternative housing, it is often built in very precarious conditions and lacks essential services such as water, sanitation, heating, electricity which particularly impact on Romani women who, because of their gender roles, have primary responsibility for household chores and care of children.
When alternative housing is provided it is often inadequate, overcrowded, without infrastructure and with limited access to services. Amnesty International has documented many cases where Roma were resettled to metal cabins, containers or other type of inadequate housing falling short of international – and often national – legal requirements on adequacy.
In some cases, resettled Roma also have to confront discrimination and hostility from host communities.
In many cases where no alternative housing is provided, Romani families have been left homeless following forced evictions and have been forced to live outside, in makeshift tents or move to other informal settlements.
Amnesty International is extremely concerned that in many cases following forced evictions authorities separated women and men, offering only to provide alternative accommodation to either all women and children or to women with children. Further, women – the primary child
‐carers in Roma communities – often fear that their children may be taken and placed into care from them when they are rendered homeless as a result of forced evictions .
In March 2009, more than 250 Roma living in a settlement at Blok 67 in Belgrade,
Serbia, were forcibly evicted in advance of the World Student Games. Hostile local residents in the suburb where containers had been hastily prepared for their resettlement, attempted to set fire to the containers. The authorities made provisions to separate all women and children from the men; while some women agreed to be taken to a social welfare centre, most of the women refused to leave their families. With no other options for families to stay together, many (?) Roma were rendered homeless, attracting local and international protest.
Amnesty International has documented cases in
France and Italy, where temporary shelter or emergency accommodation following evictions is frequently offered to women with children only. In most cases families prefer to reject the offer and not be split up. Temporary shelter is not offered to adult males or adult women without children, apparently on the grounds that the authorities are only obliged to help ‘vulnerable’ individuals such as children, elderly and sick people. In some cases in Italy such shelter is only offered to women and children only up to six or seven years old, thus mothers may be separated from their older children as well. "I do not know what parent would accept to be separated from his or her children. You can only accept that if you do not love your children. I have been together with my husband every single day for the past 23 years. Only God can separate us," Madalina, a Romani woman in Italy told Amnesty International in July 2011.
Segregation
Segregated housing provided for Roma as resettlement also has negative impacts on Romani women. According to testimonies from Romani women in Rome,
Italy, for example, camps are isolated and poorly connected to neighbourhoods, shops and services by public transport or roads with safe pavements to walk along. Shopping for essential items, visiting doctors and picking up children from schools and childcare facilities – responsibilities allocated to women in Romani communities, become time
‐consuming and difficult to carry out.
Erzsébet, A Romani woman forcibly evicted with her community from Miercurea Ciuc,
Romania, in 2004, and resettled to metal cabins next to the sewage treatment plan in the outskirts of the town, explained how following the forced evictions and their relocation to segregated housing impacted on her life as it disrupted their existing networks: "It was good [in the former location]. We had the possibility to buy on credit from a small store and we would pay when we had the money. The owner of the small shop gave me bread on credit for my children." Following resettlement, such networks were disrupted and this had a significant negative impact on Erzsébet, mother of eleven children.
Health
Despite provisions in international standards that identified relocation sites must fulfill criteria for adequate housing in accordance with international human rights standards, including ensuring that evicted people are not resettled in areas where their health may be placed at risk by the environment, this provision is often ignored.
In recent years several cases have been documented where Romani communities have been forcibly evicted and relocated in segregated areas next to garbage dumps, sewage treatment plants, or industrial areas on the outskirts of cities that could be hazardous for their health or have been provided with inadequate housing, for example in metal containers. These conditions fail to fulfil the ‘habitability’ requirement as per international human rights standards and also violate the right to a healthy environment.
Approximately 80 people were resettled by the local authorities into two derelict former military buildings at Pichet, the industrial port 4km from the city following their forced eviction in October 2006 from the centre of Tulcea in
Romania. The building is surrounded by industry and located next to an unloading bay for ships carrying bauxite ore. Mariana, a Romani woman, whose sick nephew suffered because of the bauxite dust and mould caused by damp conditions, told Amnesty International in April 2011: "In this place you can die before it’s your time. When you wash a blouse it comes out red not white…and you can’t keep the window open because all the dust and bauxite comes in. You can clean everything again and again but it will still be covered in dust."
Romani women’s health is frequently put at risk by the authorities during forced evictions. Despite specific provisions in the UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development
‐Based Evictions and Displacement that the health needs of women and children, including access to female health‐care providers where necessary, and to services such as reproductive health care, must be ensured following, Amnesty International has spoken to Romani women in Romania, who were forcibly evicted and had been left homeless to sleep on the street while being pregnant. Some have had complications. In
Serbia in April 2012, a pregnant girl (aged 16) was forcibly evicted and then accommodated in a warehouse without access to water; her baby was born five days after the eviction.
Water and sanitation
Access to water and sanitation is one of the core contributors to the right to health and are a core component of the right to adequate housing (access to public goods and services). Amnesty International is deeply concerned that Roma are regularly denied access to water and sanitation, either in informal settlements or after resettlement. In some cases, Roma dwellings are not connected to water as local authorities refuse this service for their "illegal" constructions. This impacts particularly on Romani women who, because of their gender role, are responsible not only for the collection of water, but for many household tasks – cooking, washing and cleaning, as well as childcare, which all require access to water.
Amnesty International has researched cases where people had to share a water pump with dozens – in one case with hundreds – of other families, or had no access to water at all. In
Serbia, families forcibly evicted in April 2012 from the Belvil settlement in Belgrade were provided with alternative accommodation in a warehouse in the city of Nis, where the city authorities failed to provide them with water and sanitation for almost three months. Access to the nearest water‐point in a market was limited by officials; otherwise Roma residents had to take a round trip of 1.5 hours to collect water.
In
Slovenia, Amnesty International was told by many residents of Roma settlements, particularly women, that on a daily basis they did not have enough water to cover all their domestic needs – drinking, cooking, personal hygiene, washing clothes and had to walk long distances to look for available sources of water, such as cemeteries, pumps in old factories, or individual households who agree to assist them. Lili Grm living in the informal settlement of Dobruša vas in Šocjan municipality told Amnesty International in May 2010: "Water means more than anything to me. I spend most of the day fetching water, keeping our hut clean, washing clothes for my children. When we go visit my mother in Kršo, I put my two sons in her bathroom and I just can’t get them away from the water. My heart breaks when I see that. We are lucky to have a car so we can drive to get water. But when Milan [partner] gets his severe migraine attack, I have to walk more than two kilometres to get 25 litres of water. On those days I don’t cook, I don’t wash. Sometimes we are without water for the whole day."
Women and girls living in these informal settlements are particularly affected by the lack of adequate access to toilets and bathing facilities. Silvana from the informal settlement of Ponova vas in Grosuplje municipality described to Amnesty International in October 2010 how having no water and access to sanitation is very
difficult for women and children:
"I cannot wash myself in front of my husband or my sons. If men are not home we women wash ourselves in the stream. In the winter we can only wash our hair and face. We cannot be naked in front of our children. We go to the toilet behind the house – as far away from the house as possible, to the trench... In the dark I must take the torchlight to go to the toilet, in the daylight we have to check all the time that there is no one around who could see us."5
A Romani woman from Žbjak told Amnesty International in September 2010:
"I go to the toilet in the forest, children go behind the barrack. I’m afraid in the dark and I don’t feel comfortable. I have to go out even if it’s raining and if it snows." Lack of water and adequate sanitation facilities is particularly a problem for women during menstruation.
Employment and an adequate standard of living
Amnesty International is concerned about the impact of forced evictions and resettlement to segregated housing, on access to jobs and livelihood. In some cases researched by Amnesty International, Romani women’s access to work was particularly reduced following relocation by local authorities to the outskirts of cities. In December 2010, 356 people, the vast majority Roma, were forcibly evicted from Coastei Street in the centre of Cluj
‐Napoca, in Romania and moved to inadequate housing to the Pata Rât area in the outskirts of the city. Living on Coastei street was convenient: there was access to work, especially for women with young children who could hold full‐ or part‐time jobs, for example as cleaners in the city centre which was a ten‐minute walk away. Schools and a kindergarten were also within a walking distance.
Being forcibly moved to poor quality housing on the outskirts of a city, with limited access to services and little or no income, means that established daily routines are disrupted. For example, Elena one of the women resettled to Pata Rât, in Cluj
‐Napoca, takes the school bus into the city centre with her children at 7.15 every morning. She has to get up at 5am as she shares a bathroom with 40 other people. Her children are at school until 12.30pm, and Elena spends this time in the city centre looking for a job or helping her friend who sells flowers. She is still hopeful of finding a job, but after the eviction it has become increasingly difficult. Pata Rât is 9km away from the city centre, it is not a residential area and transport is infrequent and expensive. Roma resettled there identified the lack of affordable public transport as one of the key problems they face. Other issues include lack of easy access to schools and pre‐school education and to health services. The closest bus stop is 2.5km away, the closest school 9km, and shopping centre 10km.
Risk of violence
Many places of resettlement are far away from local transport or the fare is unaffordable for resettled Roma communities. In Tulcea, Romania,
a Romani woman resettled following a forced eviction to an industrial area in the outskirts of the city, told Amnesty International that she worried about her daughter who had to walk to school alongside a street where trucks were passing, due to lack of transport into the city. She said she was afraid her daughter would get raped on her way to school. Many other women in Romania told Amnesty International they did not want to move to proposed locations as they were concerned that being relocated to remote areas would increase the risk of gender‐based violence for themselves and their children. In the locations where they were living, they knew their neighbours, trusted them and felt safe.
Within Romani settlements in
Macedonia, Romania and Serbia, Amnesty International has also been informed about forms of gender‐based violence against Romani women. The organization has documented cases of Romani women leaving violent relationships with no alternative but to live in an informal settlement at risk of forced eviction. One woman in Serbia described how she had lived in Nis until she left her husband and moved in with her mother in Belgrade. She ended up moving to an informal settlement after she could not afford the electricity and received a large fine. Multiple discrimination against Romani women means that sometimes they are unable to access support services or protection from domestic violence.
Psychological stress
Living in informal settlements at risk of forced eviction causes great uncertainty for Roma. Romani women’s health is reported as being significantly worse than that of the general population as a result of inadequate living conditions, substandard housing, poverty and the disadvantaged position of Romani women within their domestic setting.6
Many experience great psychological stress, as in
Serbia, where Amnesty International has found that women became dependent on anti‐depressants and other medication. Romani women told Amnesty International of the stress of living in such circumstances: Valdeta Missini from the Belvil settlement told Amnesty International: "It is extremely difficult to live here. It takes 10 trips to get enough water from the pump; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s hard for the children to play outside because of the garbage and the mud and in summer there are lots of rats... and we all have to sleep in the same room."
There is greater psychological stress caused by repeated evictions, carried out with no adequate notice, genuine consultations or provision of adequate alternative housing. A 54 year old Romani woman in Sucy
‐en‐Brie, France told Amnesty International in 2012: "It’s very hard, to move from place to place. We can’t even stay for a bit. As soon as I hear I’m going, it’s like, I feel my heart ache."
Recommendations
Amnesty International urges OSCE Participating States to:
Take all the necessary measures to ensure that Romani women can fully and effectively participate in all decisions affecting their lives as well as the lives of their families, including in consultations on evictions and relocation, regularization of settlements and housing upgrading programmes;
Confer a minimum degree of security of tenure to Roma including Romani women; Take all necessary measures to end forced evictions of Roma including by: enacting and enforcing a clear prohibition on forced eviction through legislation in line with international human rights standards. Ensure that victims of forced evictions and other housing rights violations have access to effective remedies;
Issue guidelines for carrying out evictions based on the UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development
‐Based Evictions and Displacement and international human rights law; including in this context ensuring that guidelines designed to ensure respect for the rights of women and girls are implemented including:
Adequate and effective consultation and representation;
Special measure to ensure that the specific health needs of pregnant women, among others groups requiring medical attention, are addressed before, during and after an eviction;.
Guarantee of the right to family life by ensuring families are relocated together;
Ensure that new housing constructed to relocate Roma, including as a result of evictions, fulfils the requirement of ‘adequacy’ as defined in General Comment 4 of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and does not lead to family separation or racial segregation;
Improve the inadequate housing conditions in Roma settlements through enabling people to regularize/"legalize" their housing where possible, and providing support for upgrading and improving housing through a process of genuine consultation with affected people. Ensure that Romani women are supported to participate in the consultation process;
Review and amend national housing legislation, policies and practices to: remove discriminatory obstacles for Roma and other marginalized groups to access social housing, including eradicating the multiple discrimination faced by women from Roma and other marginalized groups; ensuring that there is no discrimination in the provision of housing and related services; and that those in need of it are provided with assistance and support to apply for social housing paying particular attention to women
‐headed households;
Ensure at least the minimum essential levels of safe water for personal and domestic use and sanitation in all Roma settlements; including through
provision of safe and clean water which is accessible and available in sufficient quantities in the vicinity of homes while processes to regularize settlements or to provide access to piped water within settlements are pending; Ensure that Roma living in informal settlements and camps, in particular Romani women, have access to health centres, health education and services; when access to health centres is not possible immediately, this should be done temporarily through mobile clinics but should not lead to maintenance of ethnically segregated health
‐care facilities;
Take steps to remove barriers that deny Romani women and girls living in informal settlements access to education, information and services relating to sexuality, reproductive health, contraception, pregnancy (including the availability of free pregnancy care) and treatment of gynaecological problems;
Ensure that education, training and information, is provided by employment centres to Romani women on an equal basis in order to support their entry into the labour market;
Take all necessary measures to address all forms of violence, including domestic violence, against Romani women and girls, including those living in informal settlements by ensuring:
special measures to ensure that law enforcement officials, lawyers and the judiciary are sensitized to the discrimination faced by Romani women and to ensure access to legal aid for Roma, and Romani women in particular;
equal access, without discrimination, to all public services and assistance, including programmes for prevention, protection, counselling and financial assistance, for Romani women suffering from violence;
the identification of economically viable solutions, including the provision of housing, for Romani women leaving violent partners;
Establish training programmes for law
‐enforcement officers, social workers in order to challenge stereotyped perceptions of Romani women and girls living in informal settlements and establish an effective independent mechanism to investigate complaints of discriminatory treatment by officers.
Amnesty International invites the OSCE to increase its efforts to address human rights violations against Roma in the area of housing, especially forced evictions, with a particular emphasis on Romani women and girls with Participating States.
In order to fully realize the rights of Romani women, Participating States should take urgent measures to ensure the representation of Romani women in all aspects of public life, including by:
Encouragement and support for training (including by the OSCE) which aims to ensure that Romani women play a full role in central government, municipal authorities, national municipal commissions on gender equality, and civil society;
Taking further positive measures to increase the representation of Romani women, including in employment in government structures
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