Submitted by crinadmin on
[BUDAPEST, 27 July 2011] - This week the ERRC sent parallel reports to UN bodies overseeing the implementation of legal standards on racial discrimination and children’s rights, expressing concern about violations of the human rights of Romani children in the Czech Republic, Greece and Italy.
At the time of submission, ERRC Executive Director Robert Kushen emphasised the urgency of protecting children’s rights: “European states must act to stop practices of segregated education, forced evictions and systemic discrimination to ensure that future generations of Romani children do not grow up in poverty and exclusion.”
Addressing the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the ERRC raised concerns about the ongoing segregation of Romani school children in special education in the Czech Republic. Access to quality, integrated education is also an issue in Greece, as the submission to the Committee on the Rights of the Child on Greece explained. Research by the ERRC and the Greek Helsinki Monitor in 2010 showed persistent obstacles to education for many Romani children, including refusal by school authorities to enrol Romani children, lack of transportation in remote settlements and the existence of segregated, Roma-only schools.
In a joint submission with Associazone 21 luglio, the ERRC also informed the Committee on the Rights of the Child that in Italy, constant forced evictions and poor housing conditions undermine the access of Romani children to education, compromise their health and threaten their right to family life. The organisations also informed the Committee about discrimination in the State child protection system and the negative impacts of child marriages on Romani children in Italy.
Further Information on discrimination and Roma in the Czech Republic and Eastern Europe:
- CZECH REPUBLIC: Gov't could do more to end the segregation of Roma children in public schools (8 July 2011)
- CZECH REPUBLIC: UN Committee calls on authorities to desegregate schools (23 June 2011)
- Czech Republic: Govt guilty of forcing Roma children into special schools (November 2007)
- Serbia: Study shows poor and Roma children excluded (14 June 2007)
- Amnesty International: False starts: The exclusion of Romani children from primary education in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (November 2006)
Further Information on discrimination and Roma in Italy:
- HUMAN RIGHTS COMMENT: Politicians using anti-Roma rhetoric are spreading hate (29 June 2011)
- ITALY: Outrage over death of four Roma children (8 February 2011)
- To read the letter to the Mayor of Rome from the European Roma Rights Centre urging a halt to forced evictions of Roma communities, click here.
- ITALY: Rome prepares to demolish 200 illegal Gypsy camps (7 September 2010)
- ITALY: The wrong answer - Italy's 'Nomad Plan' violates the housing rights of Roma in Rome (12 March 2010)
- ITALY: Plight of Roma children still a worry, despite positive steps, says Commissioner (20 January 2009)
- ITALY: EU clears Italian plans to fingerprint Roma (11 September 2008)
- ITALY: State blasted on plan to fingerprint Roma children (6 July 2008)
- ITALY: Roma girls' corpses on beach fail to put off sunbathers (21 July 2008)
- ITALY: Separate school buses for traveller children proposed (14 January 2008)
Further Information:
- EUROPE: EU turning blind eye to discrimination against Roma (2 August 2010)
- France to shut illegal Roma camps and deport migrants (29 July 2010)
- Mass arrests and deportations of Romani EU citizens in Copenhagen condemned (European Roma Rights Centre, 12 July 2010)
- Segregated schools marginalise Roma children – the decisions of the Strasbourg Court must be implemented(Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe, June 2010)
- Portugal brought before European Tribunal for Roma housing situation (May 2010)
- Roma Rights: Journal of the European Roma Rights Centre - Multiple Discrimination (No. 2, 2009)
- Read a briefing on discrimination and Roma children here
- More on children's rights and discrimination