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A FAILING PROMISE?
ROMANI WOMEN IN THE DECADE OF ROMA INCLUSION
The Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005 - 2015 was launched at the time when the
interest in the rights of the Roma in Europe was at its peak. Within this
international initiative, heads of nine European states commited to improve the
situation of Roma living within their borders, with the support of the Open Society
Institute, the World Bank, and other governmental and intergovernmental
agencies. (1) The Decade-related efforts focus on the areas of education,
employment, health care and housing, as many Roma live in extreme poverty, in
substandard housing conditions, and their education and employment rates rank
significantly lower compared to national averages. (2)
One of the cross-cutting themes of the Decade, besides income poverty and
discrimination, is promoting gender equality. This is very much needed, as
Romani women often bear the burden of multiple discrimination. As members of
the stigmatized Romani community, they are discriminated on racial grounds by
members of other ethnic groups on almost daily basis. On the other hand, within
predominantly patriarchal Romani communities, they are put at a serious
disadvantage because of their gender. Their access to education and
employment, in particular, is limited by both racial and sexist prejudice. (3)
The multiple discrimination of Romani women remains mainly out of the limelight
of contemporary research. Most human rights watchdogs focus on the rights of
all Roma, often applying a gender-blind approach to human rights violations.
Women's rights organizations and the universalist feminist movement, on the
other hand, tend to ignore the complexity of problems that women from minority
communities, including Roma, are faced with. Within the Roma movement itself,
the issue of gender equality is often considered a bone of contention. Dealing
with issues affecting Romani women is not only neglected, but also sometimes
seen as subversive and a threat to the overall cause, as it is sometimes feared
that speaking out about violations of women's rights within the Roma community,
such as gender-based violence, or trafficking in women, will deepen anti-Romani
prejudice by others.
The efforts taken within the Roma Decade so far, when it comes to gender
concerns, unfortunately seem to be building on this mixed record. The National
Action Plans (NAPs), created in all Roma Decade member countries, have been
envisaged as the roadmap of implementation and foundation for the forseen
advancement of the Roma. However, the NAPs treat women's issues in a
marginal matter, if at all. As an illustration, the respective situations of Croatia,
Montenegro and Serbia will be briefly discussed.
In Croatia, paving the road for the Decade started in 2003, with the adoption of
the National Programme for the Roma. This programme was criticized for its lack
of regard for gender concerns and conceptual confusions: for instance, the
section that mainly addresses women's concerns is named "The Protection of the
Family, Motherhood and Youth", in contradiction to the goals of women's
empowerment. (4) It was followed in 2004 with the Roma Decade Action Plan,
meant to enhance the previous programme. The Croatian NAP refers to women's
concerns in three of its four thematic sections. References to gender are
strongest in the education section, where the enrollment of girls is among the set
goals on all schooling levels, and a number of indicators required are
disaggregated by sex. In the health section, however, the only gender-specific
references deal with "family planning" and pregnant women, while the
employment section merely mentions the need for training of groups such as
women.
The Government of Montenegro adopted the relevant NAP in January 2005 as
well. No Romani women took part in the drafting of the NAP, and as a
consequence, references to gender are minimal, reduced to the sections on
education and health care. (5) In reaction to this ommission, in late 2006, the
Gender Equality Office of the Government of Montenegro initiated drafting a NAP
on Romani Women, as part of the implementation of the international project
"Roma Women Can Do It." This process is still taking place. As of March 2007,
however, the Government of Montenegro still did not earmark funds for the
implementation of the Roma Decade. Instead, it decided to create another
document, the Government Strategy for Roma in Montenegro, prepared by the
US-based Project on Ethnic Relations in cooperation with the Ministry for the
Protection of Minority Rights. The final version of the strategy is slated for
publication within days, and it remains to be seen if any light will be shed on
Montenegrin Romani women as well, and whether any concrete implementation
of Decade plans will ensue.
Among the Decade countries, Serbia is the first state where a separate NAP on
the specific situation of Romani women was created. The process of drafting
NAPs slightly differed here: Instead of opting for the general NAP, as in the
previous two cases, a number of separate theme-specific NAPs have been
created. The NAPs dealing with the major Decade themes (education,
employment, housing, and health care) have been prioritized and adopted by the
Serbian Government in January 2005, just in time for the formal launch of the
Decade. The NAPs on health care, employment, and education touch upon the
concerns of Romani women, but only very briefly, remaining on the level of
general calls for the improvement of women's position in broad terms. In March
2005, a second set of NAPs was created, including a very detailed NAP on the
Specific Position of [Romani] Women, created by Roma and non-Roma, both
activists and officials. This NAP provides a strong basis for addressing the
multiple discrimination of Romani women. However, this plan - together with
other second-generation NAPs - has not been formally adopted so far, and it
remains unclear if it can be in any way mainstreamed into the existing adopted
NAPs, or whether it could be adopted on its own. (6) The implementation of other
NAPs for the moment appears not to have obvious gender components, with the
exception of specific health projects related to reproductive rights of women.
Finally, it is necessary to look at the neglect of Romani women's concern within
the Decade framework from a broaded perspective as well: in both Montenegro
and Serbia there is a lack of comprehensive antidiscrimination and gender
equality legislation, and NAPs on gender equality, regardless of ethnicity, are still
awaiting adoption. In Croatia, the effects of the Gender Equality Law (2003) and
the relevant NAPs still need to be thoroughly analysed, while an all-inclusive
antidiscrimination law is also missing.
Evidently, such a troubling start of the Roma Decade from the gender point of
view calls for immediate monitoring and evaluation. There is an urgent need for
policy developments that will support the growing Romani women's activism in
the Decade member states by taking into account the multiple facets of
marginalization of Romani women. Otherwise, the Roma Decade bears a high
risk of transforming into a failed promise for Romani women in the region.
March 2007
(1) More information on the Decade of Roma Inclusion, including the full texts of all National Action
Plans, can be found on its official website, http://www.romadecade.org.
(2) For statistical information on the economic and social situation of Roma in the countries of the
Decade, see the UNDP Vulnerability Dataset, available at: http://vulnerability.undp.sk. Violations
of human rights of Roma are well documented by organizations such as the Budapest-based
European Roma Rights Centre, http://errc.org.
(3) For evidence of the situation of many Romani women, see Peri?, Tatjana, At the Crossroads:
Human Rights of Romani Women in South East Europe, Identities Journal for Politics, Gender
and Culture, No. 1/2, Summer/Winter 2005, Skopje, Macedonia, pp. 129-62.
(4) Bogdani?, Ana, The Croatian National Programme for the Roma: An Example of Gender
Inequality? in OSI EUMAP, "Overcoming Exclusion: The Roma Decade", available at:
http://www.eumap.org/journal/features/2005/romadec.
(5) For more information on current policies in Montenegro when it comes to Roma and Romani
women, see Peri?, Tatjana, The Romani Women's Movement in Montenegro: Chapter One, in the
forthcoming issue of the Roma Rights journal.
(6) For a more detailed analysis of the Serbian NAP on Romani women, see Peri?, Tatjana,
Addressing gender inequality in the Decade of Roma Inclusion: The case of Serbia, in OSI
EUMAP, "Overcoming Exclusion: The Roma Decade", available at:
http://www.eumap.org/journal/features/2005/romadec.
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