The eighth of April, the International Roma Day, is an opportunity to reiterate our concern about the extremely difficult situation in which the Roma find themselves in Serbia today. We would like to mark this date by reminding of the fact that the Roma men and women are often exposed to discrimination, human rights violations and ethnically motivated crimes because of their ethnicity. The state’s declarative commitment is not accompanied by a genuine political will and tangible measures that are necessary for changing this disconcerting situation.

Although they encounter unequal treatment, violence and exclusion in almost all areas of life, on this occasion we would particularly like to draw attention to three problems that threaten their lives, violate their dignity and prevent the integration of the entire Roma community.

Violence against Roma men and women
The widespread anti-Roma mood increasingly more often culminates in violence against Roma, while the practice of impunity encourages the perpetrators to commit the most serious crimes. It is particularly worrying that the perpetrator’s motive, which is hatred and intolerance against Roma, is rarely taken into account in qualifying these acts.

Roma men and women rarely choose to report these crimes due to discriminatory treatment and secondary victimisation encountered in institutions. The crimes include physical attacks on them and their homes, destruction of their property, writing of racist graffiti and messages, persecution and threats. We express particular concern with regard to the recent racist incidents and crimes against Roma men and women in Banatsko Karadjordjevo, Zrenjanin, Pozega, Cacak, Jabuka and Belgrade, and all other cases that have not been the subject of media attention. In order to stop violence, it is essential to punish the perpetrators of all crimes.

It is necessary to strictly punish hate speech against Roma in the media, which significantly contributes to the escalation of violence by generating and reinforcing negative prejudices. The eradication of stereotypes about Roma must be an expression of unambiguous determination of the entire society not to tolerate any manifestation of racism.
     
Housing and forced evictions
Extremely adverse living conditions in informal Roma settlements, forced evictions and segregation of settlements is the reality for Roma men and women who live in nearly 600 informal settlements in Serbia. Without the opportunity to exercise one of fundamental rights - the right to housing, which inter alia includes the legally guaranteed security of tenure, houses built of solid materials and supporting infrastructure, these people are deprived of their right to live with dignity and enjoy all other rights.

According to the conclusions of the Amnesty International report, the state permanently violates the right to housing of the Roma living in informal settlements, although the undertaken obligations under ratified international instruments are binding. The residents of the settlements threatened by forced evictions, especially in Belgrade, are in a particularly difficult position. These evictions are taking place against the will and without consultation with the settlement residents and they are accompanied with the destruction of their property, homelessness and placement of evicted people in inadequate housing facilities that are often geographically segregated.

We demand from the government to immediately stop forced evictions, guarantee the security of tenure, regulate evictions by law in order to achieve full compliance with international standards, and to show a serious intent to improve living conditions in informal Roma settlements.
   
Legally invisible persons
A large number of Roma in Serbia have not been registered into birth registry books, which makes them legally invisible. Due to the state’s refusal to recognise the seriousness of the problem and the absence of adequate legal framework, this number has been steadily increasing. The right to be recognised as a person before the law is one of the basic human rights guaranteed by the Constitution and numerous international instruments ratified by Serbia. It is a condition for the exercise of all other rights, such as the right to health care and social protection, employment, education, etc. In this way, legally invisible persons are deprived of the opportunity to be equal members of society and to enjoy their rights equally.

We demand from the government to urgently adopt the legislative provisions that will provide for a simple and efficient procedure that would finally allow legally invisible persons to be recognised as persons before the law.

The Coalition against Discrimination and its partner organisations fully support the conclusions and recommendations of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the  Human Rights Committee of the United Nations and the European Commission concerning the status and rights of Roma and call upon the government to act upon them without delay.

The Coalition against Discrimination includes: Center for Advanced Legal Studies, Civil Rights Defenders, Labris - Lesbian Human Rights Organisation, Network of the Committees for Human Rights in Serbia (CHRIS Network), Association of Students with Disabilities, Gayten LGBT, Praxis and Regional Center for Minorities.

The statement is supported by:
Women in Black
Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights
Youth Initiative for Human Rights
Humanitarian Law Centre