AUTHOR: Sara B. Gero
Europe often presents itself internationally as a place of equality, equity and human rights, yet the situation of the Roma tells a different tale. The Roma represent between 10 and 12 million of the European population, with the most significant populations being in central and eastern Europe. They have faced centuries of genocide, slavery, discrimination and oppression across continents, and the segregation continues to this day. Millions of Roma live in isolated slums, often without access to electricity, running water and health care. In central and eastern Europe, Roma have a life expectancy 10 years lower than non-Roma people do. This is not the inevitable result of poverty, as many people believe, but that of centuries of discrimination from governments, institutions and individuals.
Brief Historical Background
Roma were forced into slavery for hundreds of years until the 19th century in countries like Romania. In other countries such as Denmark and Switzerland, Roma were sentenced to death throughout the medieval era. The persecution continued in the 20th century with the Nazi regime murdering an estimated 500.000 Roma during the Roma Genocide (Porrajmos), a fact that is forgotten by many when talking about the atrocities committed during the Second World War in Europe. After the war had ended, Roma continued to be discriminated against, especially in Eastern Europe where forced sterilization of Romani women was common. Only in the Czech Republic and Slovakia around 90.000 Romani women were sterilized against their will. Today, there are legal protections in place in the European Union against racial discrimination, but in many instances this is merely a formality and the segregation and discrimination of Roma continue.
The different forms of segregation
Education
Discrimination against Romani children in education is multifaceted. They are often either disproportionately placed in schools designed for students with mental disabilities or relegated to Roma-only classes and schools. At the same time, those who are attending mixed mainstream schools often face bullying, harassment and racial discrimination.
In Slovakia, for example, the government started building so-called container schools about 10 years ago, which are only attended by Romani children. These are built from shipping container-like materials that are much cheaper than those made of the usual materials. These are also much more limited in space with the inside often consisting only of corridors and classrooms. The issue isn’t confined to Eastern Europe, French municipal authorities sometimes refuse to even register Romani children in school. The reason for this is that the regular forced evictions of entire Roma communities often means that families do not have a fixed address, which can be a requirement to enrol a child in school.
Access to education is not the only issue faced by Romani children when it comes to their schooling. Those who are enrolled in the aforementioned mainstream schools often face bullying and harassment, with some children being too scared to even attend school. A young teenager in Greece has reported that her parents were afraid of the local non-Romani parents’ violent reaction to attempts to integrate Romani children. Bullying from their peers is also extremely common, often accompanied by racial slurs, with teachers often ignoring the issue or making it worse and reinforcing the idea that it was the Romani children’s fault for not fitting in.
Housing
Beyond education, housing segregation is another persistent form of systemic exclusion. Roma communities often face forced evictions and inappropriate housing conditions. In Albania, some families were forced to flee their homes after an arson attack, and were relocated by the government to tents at an extremely inadequate site, but were soon once again forced to leave due to a rent dispute between the landowner and the Albanian Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. They were then relocated multiple times to different places around the country, each of them more inadequate than the last.
At the same time, in Italy, segregation, forced evictions and discrimination in access to housing remains the reality of Romani communities. In 2013, almost 400 Romani children, women and men were placed by the local authorities in a segregated camp, next to a toxic waste landfill. According to witnesses, it was merely a piece of land in the middle of nowhere, abandoned by the authorities. After the land became completely uninhabitable, a court ordered the seizure of the land and removal by the municipality of the families. This could have been an opportunity for the government to give people dignified housing, as promised in their national Strategy for Roma Inclusion, but instead they decided to build another camp, without involving the community in the decision. In other countries, it has also been documented that Roma were evicted, and forced to live next to landfills, the example provided here is just one of many such instances.
There had been various cases in front of the European courts discussing these issues. In 2024, the Council of Europe’s European Committee of Social Rights made the unanimous decision that Italy seriously and systematically breached the European Social Charter about the housing situation of Romani communities. The Committee found that forced evictions remain a ‘current practice’ which the government has admitted, and that Italy has failed to adopt a legal framework to ensure remedies when they occur. Thus, Italy will now be required to take steps not only to ensure adequate, non-segregated and non-discriminatory housing for Roma, and to provide remedies enabling some form of justice for those who have experienced discrimination and segregation.
Healthcare
The aforementioned issues of inadequate housing are worsened by the lack of access to healthcare. The main obstacles to the enjoyment of the right to health by Roma are the exclusion from health insurance, discrimination by health care professionals, the inability to pay the cost of health care and medication, and the lack of health care services in remote, segregated settlements.
In many countries, health insurance is unavailable due to their unsettled legal status. Many do not have identity cards, birth certificates or, sometimes, citizenships, which prevents them from registering for social benefits. Moreover, in many countries, even those who have health insurance are required to pay a top-up fee covering a proportion of the cost of the health care provided and medication. For example, in Macedonia the rate is about 20% with many procedures and medications not being covered at all.
Many Roma are also denied health services as a result of discrimination by health care professionals. It has been reported that the multiple examples of discrimination by professionals include the denial of emergency aid to Roma, the refusal to treat Romani patients, the extortion of money from them, segregation in hospital facilities and verbal abuse and degrading treatment.
Health care for Roma can also be impeded by geographical barriers. In 2005, it was reported that 40% of Roma in Baranya and Somogy counties in Hungary lived in villages without a health care professional. While in Spain, in 2008, it was found that 12% lived without a health centre nearby. These statistics have not improved significantly since then.
Furthermore, from a historical perspective, many Romani women were forced to undergo sterilizations for decades. It wasn’t until 2021 that the Czech Senate voted to compensate the thousands of Roma women who were forcibly sterilized by the authorities between 1966 and 2012. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, sterilizations without informed consent constitute torture and ill-treatment, making them unlawful under article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights.
Employment
The extreme marginalization of many Roma, their poor living conditions, the isolation of many Romani settlements and low levels of education, and the widespread discrimination they face from employers, makes it practically impossible for many to access regular formal employment. An ERRC report found that of the 62% of Roma they interviewed across 5 central European countries who reported that they knew they had been discriminated against in the job market, almost half reported that they were certain of the racial reasoning behind this discrimination as it was made explicit by the (potential) employer. A report from the Fundamental Rights Agency claimed that the Roma were Europe’s most discriminated group. This makes many Roma dependent on social benefits.
The automated welfare systems have significantly worsened the situation of Roma communities. Rather than making benefit payments more equitable, thousands of people have been locked out of the social safety nets in countries such as Serbia. For example, in one case a woman was disqualified from receiving social assistance after a local NGO helped cover the cost of a funeral for her daughter, as this help was perceived to be income by the automated system.
Quick Summary
All of the issues mentioned do not exist in isolation, they are deeply interconnected and result in a cycle of poverty and discrimination that is often impossible to escape. Romani children are segregated in school, often because they do not have appropriate living conditions. This results in them not being able to get a job later on, which results in poverty, inadequate living conditions, and lack of proper education for their children. Romani people face systematic, multifaceted discrimination that is rooted in historical atrocities and ideals of racial superiority. The governments continually fail these communities by not helping their integration into society, and in many cases by discriminating against them directly. While the European Union has made attempts to rectify these situations, the effect of these was superficial at best, with the forced evictions and educational segregation continuing in many countries across the continent. The equality that the European Union claims to represent cannot exist without the elimination of the mistreatment of Romani people, and without holding governments accountable for these ongoing injustices.
Sources:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/04/the-stunted-education-of-romani-children-in-europe/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur11/2644/2015/en/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/04/roma-on-the-margins-housing-rights-denied/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur01/021/2010/en/
Sources picture: