Alexander Soros accepts the European Civil Rights Prize of the Sinti and Roma on behalf of his father, George. Credit: Gorden Welters

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Oct 27 2025 (IPS)

Billionaire philanthropist George Soros has been awarded the European Civil Rights Prize of the Sinti and Roma for his decades of work supporting Roma rights.

Through sustained philanthropic efforts, Soros, who founded the Open Society Foundations (OSF), has supported projects across the continent advancing the rights, dignity, and empowerment of Roma—Europe’s largest ethnic minority.

His son Alexander, who is chair of the board of directors of the OSF, accepted the prize, which was established in memory of Holocaust survivors and pioneers of the Roma civil rights movement, Oskar and Vinzenz Rose, in Berlin on October 23, on his father’s behalf.

He said, “My father’s partnership with Roma communities has always been grounded in a deep belief in justice, dignity, and self-determination. This prize is a powerful recognition of that shared journey—and a call to continue the fight against prejudice and exclusion.”

Soros’s philanthropy has supported Roma-led organizations to confront discrimination, expand access to education and justice, improve early childhood development and healthcare, and amplify Roma voices in public life.

Among some of the most significant projects have been the creation of the European Roma Rights Centre, the Roma Education Fund (REF), and the Decade of Roma Inclusion, which collectively helped more than 150,000 Roma students attend school, challenged segregation before the European Court of Human Rights, and elevated Roma voices in public discourse.

Meanwhile, the 2024 launch of the Roma Foundation for Europe (RFE)—an independent, Roma-led institution established with a 100 million EUR pledge from the Open Society Foundations—was a key moment in support for Roma across the continent.

Speaking after the prize was awarded, those involved in some of these institutions highlighted not just how these projects have changed the lives of Roma individuals and advanced Roma rights more widely, but also the impact Soros and his work have had on Roma communities in Europe.

“Over the past two decades, REF has supported thousands of young Roma across 16 countries to complete higher education and build successful professional careers,” Ciprian Necula, Executive President of the REF, told IPS.

“Today, there are Roma doctors, engineers, teachers, lawyers, IT specialists, economists, social workers, journalists, and artists whose professional journeys began with REF’s support. Our most meaningful contribution has been creating genuine pathways to education and employment, proving that talent exists in every community when access and opportunity are fair.

“The work of George Soros has been extremely important to Roma communities. No other individual or institution has supported Roma communities with such consistency and vision. His contribution went far beyond financial support; he helped us build institutions, nurture leadership, and develop long-term strategic perspectives.

“His legacy is one of trust, solidarity, and shared responsibility, a reminder that real progress happens when marginalized communities are not only supported but empowered to lead their own change.”

Zeljko Jovanovic, RFE President, told IPS, “Without the Open Society Foundations, the Roma movement as we know it simply wouldn’t exist.”

“George Soros put Roma issues on Europe’s agenda and helped build the first networks of activists, researchers and policymakers working together for change. Over time, his support helped cultivate a generation of Roma professionals and advocates able to design and run their own initiatives. That legacy made today’s Roma-led institutions possible, including the Roma Foundation for Europe,” he said.

“The Roma Foundation for Europe is the most important step in building a Roma-led institution on a European scale in decades. It builds on the long tradition of support for Roma civil society that started with the Open Society Foundations but takes it further—focusing on leadership, education, economic participation, culture and political voice. There’s been a strong sense of ownership and hope [among Roma towards the Foundation]. Many Roma see the Foundation as something long overdue—a space where Roma lead, set the agenda and work with others as equals. It’s not just another organization that speaks about Roma but one that gives structure, power and voice to Roma-led ideas, from business and education to culture and politics,” he added.

Soros has said that he would be donating the 15,000 EUR endowment that comes with the award to the Roma Education Fund.

Necula said the money would be used to expand the Fund’s digital education program.

“This initiative will give Roma children and youth access to technology, digital skills training, and new learning opportunities. In essence, we will turn vision into action, transforming education into opportunity for our children. By investing in digital education now, we ensure that no child is left behind in the transformation shaping our economies and communities,” he said.

In comments after being awarded the prize, Soros spoke of his long-standing relationship with the Roma and highlighted the continued discrimination they face.

“The Roma have endured centuries of discrimination and marginalization, rooted in a long history of violence—from the Holocaust to forced sterilization, child removals, and evictions. These injustices continue to resurface, as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic and, more recently, when Roma fleeing the war in Ukraine faced barriers to shelter and aid,” he said.

“I’ve always believed that open societies must protect the rights of all people—especially those who are excluded. Working alongside Roma leaders and communities has been one of the most meaningful parts of my life’s work,” he added.

Meanwhile, Alexander has pledged to continue his father’s fight for Roma rights, equality, and support for communities’ empowerment.

“As a child, I accompanied my parents on visits across Europe to meet Roma leaders and their families. Those experiences left a lasting impression on me and shaped my own commitment to human rights. Today, as chair of the Open Society Foundations, I am proud to carry forward this vital work and stand alongside Roma communities in their pursuit of equal rights and freedom. The discrimination that Roma experience is a threat to all of Europe. None of us is free until we are all free,” he said.

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The home of Oksana Serhienko, Merefa village, near Kharkiv, Ukraine. Credit: Akos Stiller

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Aug 6 2025 (IPS)

As Russian forces continue to lay waste to civilian areas of towns and cities across Ukraine, Roma in the country are struggling to access compensation to help them rebuild their damaged homes.

Russia’s relentless bombing has, according to the World Bank, left 13 percent of Ukraine’s housing damaged or destroyed, affecting over 2.5 million households.

Despite this, many Ukrainians, including Roma, have refused to leave their homes in the face of relentless bombing and instead are determined to carry on living in sometimes severely damaged homes to keep their communities alive.

But a new report has shown that many Roma—one of the most vulnerable communities in Ukraine—have been unable to access state property damage compensation: only 4 percent of Roma households surveyed successfully secured compensation for war damage, despite suffering widespread destruction.

This is because requirements for applicants mean the Roma population, whose lives were already precarious long before the war began, are being disproportionately excluded from the scheme, according to the Roma Foundation for Europe (RFE), which was behind the report.

“Many of the issues we identify [in our report] affect non-Roma applicants too—particularly in occupied or frontline areas… [but] what makes the situation more severe for Roma is the combination of these factors with long-standing exclusion and economic precarity,” Neda Korunovska, Vice President for Analytics and Results at RFE, told IPS.

As in many countries in Europe, the Roma community in Ukraine has long faced social exclusion and, many claim, systemic discrimination at societal and institutional levels.

But like the rest of Ukrainian society, they have felt the full effects of Russia’s brutal full-scale invasion over the last three and half years and many have seen their homes damaged or even destroyed.

State compensation for property damage caused by the fighting is available, but experts say there are significant barriers for claimants, some of which are specifically greater for Roma people.

These include requirements such as possession of official property documents and proof of ownership—both sometimes difficult for Roma from communities where informal housing and disputed property rights are not uncommon—as well as a need for a level of digital literacy, which can be a problem for communities where levels of digital exclusion are high, according to RFE.

The group’s analysis, based on cases across four Ukrainian regions, including Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih, Odessa and Kharkiv, shows that deeply entrenched legal, administrative, and digital hurdles are blocking Roma communities from accessing aid intended for rebuilding homes and lives, the group claims.

Zeljko Jovanovic, RFE president, said that current compensation systems, although designed for order and efficiency, often overlook those with fewer resources but no less damage, and that they lack “…the required flexibility for the complex realities of pre-war informality of homes, displacement, and occupation.”

“Many affected families cannot afford the property registration fees or the costs associated with inheritance procedures. The average damage of 2,816 Euros represents several months of pre-war salary,” he added.

RFE points out that in regions like Odesa, more than half (54 percent) of Roma families lack formal property registration, while in Kryvyi Rih, not a single claim from the surveyed households has been submitted to the state registry due to legal limbo over inheritance, missing paperwork, and lack of resources to navigate the system. Even in Zaporizhzhia, where property records are strongest, low application rates point to deep mistrust in institutions, amplified by experiences of discrimination.

Some Roma contacted for the survey said they had not even bothered to apply for compensation for fear that the government might later come and demand the money back from them.

“This is a reflection of deep institutional mistrust,” said Korunovska. “This mistrust isn’t unfounded—it’s rooted in long-standing patterns of discrimination. In previous research we have undertaken, many Roma respondents have described negative treatment by public officials when seeking housing or services. Surveys consistently show high levels of social distance between Roma and the broader population in Ukraine, which reinforces these feelings of exclusion.”

RFE points out that nationally, around 61% of submitted claims have been approved, but that among Roma, the figure was only 28%—and the vast majority (86%) of people surveyed for its report never submitted claims at all due to systemic barriers.

Liubov Serhienko, 69, has lived in her home in Merefa, near Kharkiv, for the last forty years. But it has suffered severe damage from bombings by Russian forces—during one attack the roof and some ceilings collapsed and one room is now entirely uninhabitable. During a short evacuation from the house, thieves stole her boiler, fridge, and furniture.

Her daughter, Oksana, describes how the family—three generations all living under the same roof, including Oksana and her children—is forced to use blankets to try to retain whatever heat they can in rooms now largely completely exposed to the outside because walls are no longer standing. In winter, snow blows straight into the home, she says.

While neighbors have helped with some repairs, resources are limited and the building remains in disrepair. Relying solely on her pension of 3,000 UAH (around €70) to support the household—the war has taken away all job opportunities for her and members of her family—she says all she wants is the state to help fix the roof and ceiling, as she no longer has the physical strength or finances to do it herself.

In testimony to RFE, which was passed on to IPS, Serhienko said, “What I want most right now is for my family to have a roof over their heads.”

Oksana criticizes the lack of help from the state for them and other Roma in similar situations.

“The government doesn’t care. They’ve done nothing,” she said.

Her mother goes even further, explicitly linking her experience to deliberate discrimination by authorities.

“[Just] Gypsies, they say. As if we’re not people. Maybe they don’t see us as people.”

Andriy Poliakov has stayed in his home in Andriivka in the Kharkiv region since the start of the full-scale invasion, despite the severe damage the dwelling has suffered in Russian attacks.

Windows are broken and there are cracks in the walls, as he has suffered several damages to their house, windows were broken, and there are cracks in the walls, as his house has shifted structurally due to bomb blasts. Poliakov, 45, refuses to leave his home, as he is a sole caregiver for some members of his family, even though he is disabled himself, but he says life is difficult, as they have no gas or other reliable heating source and rely on a makeshift stove he built from stone and bricks.

As with almost all of those surveyed in the RFE report, Poliakov has had no help from the state with any of the damage to his home. One of the reasons so many Roma choose not to even attempt to apply for compensation is the distrust of authorities that is widespread among communities—a distrust Poliakov shares.

“They don’t care. Even though I’m disabled and it’s on paper that I’m disabled… It doesn’t matter to them,” he said.

In the wake of its findings, RFE is calling on the Ukrainian government to integrate urgent reforms into reconstruction planning, including accepting alternative proof of ownership such as utility bills or community testimony, waiving registration fees for war-affected families, and introducing temporary ownership certificates to ensure displaced or undocumented Roma have access to compensation.

RFE says it is hoping to present its findings to government representatives in the coming weeks.

“We hope this data will serve as a constructive basis for reform, especially in light of Ukraine’s broader efforts to align with European values of fairness and accountability,” said Korunovska.

Jovanovic added that “even if full compensation isn’t possible now, temporary support is essential. Roma living in damaged homes are part of Ukraine’s strength and its resistance.”

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Roma community protest in the Serbian city of Nis after dozens of families in a settlement in the city had their electricity cut off. Credit: Opre Roma Srbija

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Jan 5 2023 (IPS)

As European households brace for energy shortages this winter and leaders draw up support packages to help people heat homes in the coming months, experts fear that the largest minority on the continent, the Roma, will be left behind.

Many of the 12 million Roma in Europe have a low standard of living, and even before the energy crisis, energy poverty was rife among their communities.

Roma leaders and rights organisations say the current crisis has only deepened the problem and are calling for governments to ensure that one of the continent’s most vulnerable groups gets the help they need this winter and beyond.

“EU leaders and policymakers must ensure that energy policies already agreed, or any agreed in future, must be tailored and implemented in such a way that the most vulnerable, including the Roma, can access and benefit from them,” Zeljko Jovanovic, director of the Open Society Roma Initiatives Office at the Open Society Foundations (OSF), told IPS.

Roma living in Europe are among the most discriminated and disadvantaged groups on the continent. In many countries, significant numbers live in segregated settlements where living conditions are often poor, and extreme poverty is widespread.

Energy poverty is also common. It is estimated that at least 10% of the roughly 6 million Roma living in EU countries have no access to electricity at all.

Roma protest after electricity supplies to 24 families in the ‘12 February’ Roma settlement in the southern Serbian city of Nis was cut off over unpaid bills. There are calls for European countries to take into consideration the plight of the Roma during the energy crisis. Credit: Opre Roma Srbija

Meanwhile, where utilities are available, many struggle to afford them.

Rising energy prices this year have exacerbated the problem. But while governments have rolled out help in the form of one-off payments and other support for families and businesses to pay energy bills, this aid is often not filtering through to Roma despite the minority being among those most in need, say rights activists.

Unemployment in Roma communities is often high, with only one in four Roma aged 16 years or older reporting being employed, and many earn money working in the grey or black economies. But because of this, they often struggle with accessing state support schemes. This is especially true for measures approved to provide financial aid during the energy crisis.

“Even before the energy crisis, there was a problem with energy poverty in Europe, and for the Roma, this was even more so because so many were not in the formal system.

“Measures [approved] for the energy crisis are made for those in the formal system. Many Roma are not in that system – they are unemployed, or not formally registered, or earning money and paying into the social welfare system – so they cannot access those measures,” explained Jovanovic.

Roma NGOs working in some countries say they have already seen these problems.

In Romania, which has a Roma population of 1.85 million according to the Council of Europe, a programme to help the vulnerable with energy payments has been launched.

But Alin Banu, Community Organiser at the Aresel civic initiative, told IPS some Roma are unable to access it precisely because “they work in the grey or black economy and don’t have the right documentation of social insurance payments, wages etc.”.

Meanwhile, even those who are eligible for help are often being denied it, he claimed. He said that some municipalities had put conditions on receiving help to pay energy bills – for example, evidence of historical tax debt, or car ownership, makes an individual ineligible for the help.

The group says this is illegal.

“We have solved this problem in some cases, but most Roma will not complain about this because often they simply will not know it is illegal,” Balu said.

There are also concerns that other measures already adopted will actually make things worse for Roma.

Last year European leaders agreed on a non-binding goal for EU countries to reduce overall electricity demand by at least 10% by 31 March 2023, and a mandatory reduction of electricity consumption by 5% for at least 10% of high-demand hours each week.

Jovanovic fears that politicians’ first steps to save on energy consumption could involve simply cutting off power supplies to those not formally connected to the energy grid.

“Countries’ reductions in energy demand might come from cutting energy to those who do not have formal access to it, like the Roma,” said Jovanovic.

Nicu Dumitru, a Community Organiser at Arsesel, agreed – “the Roma would be the first to be cut off in that case,” he told IPS – but said that even if that does not happen, many Roma are already struggling with soaring energy costs.

Information collected by his group suggests that a fifth of all Roma households have had their electricity cut off since the start of the crisis because they cannot afford to pay. They are then connecting informally to the grid – usually through one person in their community who has a connection and who then charges high prices for others for use of that power – often borrowing money to do so, and worsening their already precarious financial situation.

There are an estimated over 400,000 people informally connected to the power grid in Romania, many of them Roma.

“The situation is getting critical for Roma,” Dumitru said.

Meanwhile, Roma activists in other countries are worried that politicians will use the energy crisis as an excuse to ignore long-term problems with energy poverty among the Roma or even as a justification to allow Roma settlements to be cut off from supplies.

In May this year, electricity supplies to 24 families in the ’12 February’ Roma settlement in the southern Serbian city of Nis were cut off over unpaid bills. The families claim this debt pre-dates their time living there, but the local power distributor demanded proof of house ownership from the families before reconnection.

People in many Roma settlements often lack such documents as the process for obtaining them is costly and difficult for many to navigate without expert legal help, and none of these families was able to provide the required proof.

It was only after both local and nationwide protests by members of the community themselves and negotiations between the families, who were represented by the Opre Roma Serbia rights group, local authorities, and the local distributor Elektrodistribucija Nis, that in December, limited supplies of electricity were restored to the families involved.

Jelena Reljic of Opre Roma Serbia said she was pleased those affected could now access electricity again but warned “the situation in this settlement is an example of a much wider systemic problem” which politicians are not doing enough to solve.

“The last cut off in this settlement was because of historic debt, but the problems with electricity [there] have been going on for a decade. Politicians are relying on being able to cut Roma settlements off from electricity during the energy crisis without too much public outrage or resistance. Around 99% of the reaction we have seen to the problem in this settlement has been of the type ‘oh, no one should be getting energy free during this crisis, we pay, so why shouldn’t they?’” she told IPS.

“Politicians are using the energy crisis to cover up the fact that they have never dealt with the problem of energy poverty for years and years,” she added.

The OSF’s Jovanovic wants European policymakers to review their proposed help during the crisis, including not just the approved reductions in energy demand but plans for energy price caps and a solidarity levy on the profits of businesses active in the oil, natural gas, coal, and refinery sectors.

He said the 5% reduction must not lead to electricity cuts for those already in energy poverty and that public revenues from the energy cap and solidarity levy – estimated at €140bn within the EU – should be redistributed along principles that are both morally and macroeconomically justified.

He has been involved in high-level EU committee meetings on energy crisis support policies, but, he told IPS, at those meetings, there seemed to be “little idea of the perspective of Roma and other vulnerable groups and how they would cope in the crisis”.

Now he and other activists are trying to arrange further talks with EU and national policymakers to urge them to address shortcomings in current policies affecting vulnerable groups, including Roma.

“We want to raise these issues,” he said.

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A family from Ukraine rests on a bench after arriving in Zahony, Hungary, on February 27, 2022. Among the estimated 2,5 million refugees who have fled Ukraine were Roma refugees who say they were discriminated against as they tried to escape the violence. Credit: Laetitita Vancon

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Mar 9 2022 (IPS)

Roma refugees fleeing war-torn Ukraine are facing discrimination on both sides of the country’s borders at the end of often harrowing journeys across the country, rights groups have claimed.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 has sparked what the UN has described as the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since WWII, and as of March 9, an estimated 2 million people had left the country.

These include Roma who, like other refugees, abandoned their homes and communities as fighting broke out across the country.

But having reached borders of neighbouring states, they have found themselves subject to what some groups helping them have described as “brutal” discrimination.

“Groups working on the ground at borders in Slovakia, Romania, and Hungary have confirmed discrimination to us, and also media reports have backed this up. Roma are facing discrimination both by border guards, and then local people once they get out of Ukraine. It’s very sad and disappointing, but not surprising,” Zeljko Jovanovic, Director of the Roma Initiatives Office at the Open Society Foundation (OSF) told IPS.

Roma refugees faced ‘brutal’ discrimination at both sides of the border of Ukraine as they joined 2 million others to flee the bombing in war-torn Ukraine. These headlines reflect their ordeal. Graphic: IPS

Roma living in Europe are among the most discriminated and disadvantaged groups on the continent. In many countries, including Ukraine where it is thought there are as many as 400,000 Roma, significant numbers live in segregated settlements where living conditions are often poor and extreme poverty widespread.

Health in many such places is also bad with research[1] showing very high burdens of both infectious and non-communicable diseases and significantly shorter lifespans than the general population.

Incidents of discrimination of Roma have been reported at the borders of all countries that are taking in refugees, according to the OSF and the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC).

These have included being made to wait much longer in lines, sometimes tens of kilometres long, in freezing weather, than ethnic Ukrainian refugees, before they are processed.

“They are always the last people to be let out of the country,” said Jovanovic.

Media reports have quoted refugees describing discrimination and, in some cases, physical attacks.

One Roma woman who had made her way to Moldova said she and her family had spent four days waiting at the border with no food and water, and having found shelter were then chased out of it by Ukrainian guards.

Groups working with the refugees said Roma who crossed into their countries told them similar stories.

Viktor Teru of the Roma Education Fund in Slovakia said: “Roma refugees tell us that on the Ukrainian side there is ‘brutal’ discrimination.”

But once they finally make it over the border, their problems often do not end there.

Bela Racz, of the 1Hungary organisation, which is helping Roma refugees in Hungary, said he had witnessed discrimination during three days his organisation spent in the eastern Hungarian border town of Zahony at the beginning of March.

“Roma arrived in separate coaches – the Ukrainian border guards organized it this way – and when they did arrive, Roma mothers were checked by Hungarian police many times, but non-Roma mothers were not.

“Local mayors and Hungarians are not providing direct help, such as accommodation, and information, [for Roma] in their towns – that only comes if we ask for it and organise it. Roma did not get proper help, information, or support,” he told IPS.

There have been numerous media reports of similar discrimination at border crossings in other countries, including incidents of Roma being refused transport by volunteers, and being refused accommodation.

Jaroslav Miko, founder of the Cesi Pomahaji (Czechs Help) NGO, who has transported more than 100 Roma refugees from the Slovak-Ukrainian border to the Czech Republic, told IPS he had seen “discrimination of Roma among the volunteers who were picking people up at the border”. He said volunteers were picking up some refugees in vehicles and taking them to other places, but that Roma families were being turned away if they asked for help.

In another incident, the head of a firefighting station in Humenne, in eastern Slovakia, where many Roma refugees have been sent to a holding camp, told a reporter that the refugees had “abused the situation”. “They are not people who are directly threatened by the war. They are people from near the border, they have abused the opportunity for us to cook them hot food here and to receive humanitarian aid,” the firefighter allegedly said, adding that Ukrainian Roma should not be allowed across the border.

Slovakia’s Interior Minister Roman Mikulec and national fire brigade officials have refused to comment on the claims.

But despite these incidents of discrimination, Roma refugees are getting local help – from other Roma.

“Many Hungarian Roma living in nearby villages are providing accommodation for Roma. Due to the presence of groups like ours, and state representatives, the situation with discrimination is getting better,” said Racz.

“There is a good network of Roma activist groups coordinating work to help refugees and also there are Roma mayors in many towns near the borders in Romania and Slovakia who are prepared to take Roma refugees and arrange shelter for them,” added Jovanovic.

However, all those who spoke to IPS said the discrimination against Roma refugees was a reminder of the systemic prejudice the minority faces.

Meanwhile, Jovanovic said he hoped that the problems Roma refugees were facing now would not be forgotten, as they had been in the past.

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The United Nations rapporteur for minorities has anti-Roma and anti-‘Gypsy’ bias in her sights.

Apr. 8 marked International Roma Day, and United Nations Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues Rita Izsák used the occasion to call for greater action on stamping out bias against Roma.

“Discrimination and racism against Roma come in many different forms, ranging from silent indifference to hate speech and violence against individuals or entire communities […]. Unfortunately this has led to a desensitisation of the public, and to the resurgence of unacceptable myths about Roma criminality, unworthiness and inferiority,” Izsák said in a statement published on the website of the U.N. Office in Geneva.

“It is due time for our societies to stop tolerating any public discourse that perpetuates stereotypical, racist, hateful or discriminatory views about Roma, and take effective action against such discourses.  We must reject anti-Gypsyism in all its forms.”

Izsák will present a comprehensive study of the human rights situation of Roma worldwide, with a particular focus on the phenomenon of anti-Gypsyism, to the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) in June.

In her statement, she highlighted the need for media to avoid perpetuating “sensationalist” coverage of negative stereotypes of people of Gypsy and Roma heritage, as well as for political and social leaders to work harder in eradicating biases against those groups.

“There is an urgent need for strengthened political will, especially at the national and local level, and an openness to learn from past mistakes in policies and planning… in order to break the vicious cycle of stigma, discrimination and marginalization,” Izsák said.

She also raised concerns about “the lack of Roma representation” in political and decision-making bodies.

The issue of how those of Roma and Gypsy heritage are treated has made recent headlines worldwide. In April 2014, a leaked note from a Paris police chief ordered his officers to work “day and night” to “systematically evict” Roma families from Paris streets.

An Amnesty International report in 2014 also accused European states including France, the Czech Republic and Greece of failing to protect Roma from racism and violence. Amnesty said the estimated 12 million Roma living in Europe were “living with the daily threat of forced eviction […], police harassment and violent attacks.”

Most of France’s 20,000 Roma lived in extreme poverty, according to the report, with “little or no access to basic services, such as water and sanitation and at constant risk of forced evictions.”

Violent anti-Roma protests, police harassment and violence, evictions and arbitrary detention of Roma were detailed in the report.

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Social worker in the flat of a drug addict in Donetsk doing outreach work. Drug addicts, like other marginalised groups, including Roma, are victims of the collapse of the health system in East Ukraine. Credit: Natalia Kravchuk/International HIV/AIDS Alliance Ukraine©

By Pavol Stracansky
KIEV, Jan 28 2015 (IPS)

With international organisations warning that East Ukraine is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe as its health system collapses, marginalised groups are among those facing the greatest struggle to access even basic health care in the war-torn region.

The conflict between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces has affected more than five million people, with 1.4 million classified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and human rights bodies as “highly vulnerable” because of displacement, lack of income and a breakdown of essential services, including health care.

Fighting and accompanying measures imposed by both sides have led to medical supplies being severely interrupted or cut off entirely, hospitals destroyed or battling constant water and power cuts, and crippling staff shortages at health facilities as medical staff flee the fighting.

A complete lack of vaccines is threatening outbreaks of diseases such as polio and measles, while there are concerns for HIV/AIDS and TB sufferers as supplies of vital medicines dry up and disease monitoring becomes almost impossible.Fighting and accompanying measures imposed by both sides have led to medical supplies being severely interrupted or cut off entirely, hospitals destroyed or battling constant water and power cuts, and crippling staff shortages at health facilities as medical staff flee the fighting.

Massive internal displacement because of the conflict – latest U.N. estimates are of 700,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) with the figure rising by as much as 100,000 per week – has also left hundreds of thousands living in sometimes desperate and unhygienic conditions, creating a further health risk and the chance that infectious diseases, such as TB, will spread.

But while there is a threat to healthcare provision from collapsing resources, some in the region are facing extra barriers to accessing health care.

Ukraine has one of the worst HIV/AIDS epidemics in the world and the spread of the disease has been fuelled mainly by injection drug use. But, unlike in many Eastern European states, the country has been running for more than a decade an internationally lauded range of harm reduction programmes which have been credited with checking the disease’s spread.

These have included opioid substitution therapy (OST) programmes available to drug users across the country. These are particularly important in East Ukraine because the majority of Ukraine’s injection drug users come from the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

But local and international organisations working with drug users say that addicts’ access to life-saving treatment in those areas has come under increasing pressure since the start of the conflict and that it could be cut off entirely within weeks as supplies of methadone and buprenorphine used in the treatment run out and cannot be replaced.

The International HIV/AIDS Alliance Ukraine which runs many OST centres as well as other harm reduction programmes, has said that stocks of antiretroviral drugs, OST and other life-saving treatments will have run out by  February.  More than 300 OST patients in Donetsk and Luhansk have lost access to treatment since the conflict began, while a further 550 patients on methadone will run out of drugs soon if emergency supplies cannot be delivered.

U.N. officials in close contact with international organisations helping drug users as well as doctors in Donetsk have confirmed to IPS that clinics have only a few weeks’ worth of stocks of methadone left.

One doctor in Donetsk working on an OST programme, who asked not to be named, told IPS:  “There are serious problems with medicine supplies. The last shipments came in September last year and some patients have already had to finish their treatments. Many had been on it for a decade and in that time had forged new lives, put their, sometimes criminal, past behind them and had families. It was absolutely tragic for them when they stopped.”

It is unclear what will happen to all those no longer able to access OST treatment. Doctors say some have gone into detoxification, while others have moved to other cities in safer areas of Ukraine in the hope of continuing OST.

But with 60 percent of those receiving OST also being HIV positive, according to the Donetsk doctor, and reports that many are now turning to illicit drugs and needle-sharing again as access to OST is cut off, there are concerns that the disease, along with Hepatitis C which is rife among injection drug users, and tuberculosis, could be spread, and that the lives of many drug users will again be at risk.

OST patient Andriy Klinemko, who was forced to flee Donetsk with his wife when their house was destroyed in bombing last summer and who is now in Dnipropetrovsk in central Ukraine, told IPS: “OST patients in East Ukraine are being forced to move, but not all of them can and even those that make it to other regions may not be able to continue OST because there is no money left to run such programmes. It’s a bad situation and at the moment I really can’t see any way it’s going to get better.”

But drug users are not the only marginalised community struggling to access health care.

Historically, the estimated 400,000-strong Roma community in Ukraine has, like Roma in many other Eastern European states, faced widespread discrimination in society, including in employment and education.

They have also always had limited access to healthcare because many Roma lack official ID documentation which makes it difficult for many to obtain official health care, while widespread poverty also means services and medicines which require any payment are also inaccessible to most. Meanwhile, many Roma settlements are in remote locations, far away from the nearest health centres.

Dr Dorit Nitzan, head of the WHO’s Ukraine Office, told IPS: “Even before the conflict, Roma in Ukraine had limited access to curative and preventive health service. As a result, Roma children have extremely low vaccination coverage. Moreover, rates of tuberculosis and other communicable and non-communicable diseases are higher among Roma than in the general population.”

Discrimination is also a problem. Zola Kondur of the Chiricli Roma rights group in Ukraine, told IPS: “In terms of healthcare, Roma are among the most vulnerable in the country. They are treated badly because of their ethnicity.”

However, the problems for Roma have dramatically worsened since the conflict began. Some human rights groups have said that since the separatist regimes took power in the region, Roma have faced systematic violent and sometimes fatal repression.

According to a report this month of an international mission to monitor human rights

by the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, Roma living in separatist-controlled areas have been “subjected to open aggression from militants ….[who] have carried out real ethnic cleansing” against them. Many have fled and become IDPs, subsequently facing health struggles.

Dr Nitzan said: “As in every crisis, if not given special attention, marginalised and vulnerable groups are at higher risk. In Ukraine, many Roma lack civil documentation, and thus cannot be registered as internally displaced persons and are not included in the provision of any health services.

“Moreover, their inability to pay ‘out-of-pocket’ limits their ability to procure medication and/or services. Compounding this is that many Roma IDPs are residing at the margins of society, in remote geographical locations, where no services are available. All of these factors make health services inaccessible to Roma.”

Local rights groups say that Roma who have managed to flee to safe areas have often ended up homeless and starving after facing problems accessing aid because of a dismissive attitude from volunteers and staff at social institutions, while their lack of identification documents also prevented them from accessing any official help.

However, even those who have managed to find treatment have sometimes faced further problems.

Kondur told IPS: “In one case a Roma family moved from Kramatorsk to Kharkiv. A little boy had a heart problem brought on by the stress of the fighting and he was taken to hospital. One night, a group of young people broke the window of the boy’s hospital room, shouting ‘Gypsies get out’. The boy had a heart attack.”

Edited by Phil Harris

This wall in Michalovce town in Eastern Slovakia was erected after complaints that Roma were walking through a non-Roma estate to the town centre. Credit: Ingrid Hruba/IPS.

By Pavol Stracansky
KOSICE, Slovakia, Aug 24 2013 (IPS)

The European Commission (EC) has demanded that Slovakia’s second city, Kosice, tear down a wall put up to segregate Roma – the 14^th such wall in the country and the eighth built in the last four years.

The 30 metre-long and two-metre high wall went up in Kosice, currently the European Capital of Culture, in June after locals in part of the city complained about repeated car thefts and anti-social behaviour from Roma living on nearby estates.

The EC has written to city officials telling them that the wall is a breach of the human rights values the EC holds.

Authorities in the Kosice-Zapad area of the city where the wall has been put up claim that it is not anti-Roma and has instead been built solely to provide secure parking space.“Walls such as these in Slovakia or anywhere else are not only physical barriers but also psychological dividing lines."

But activists say it is a symbol of how entrenched the exclusion of the minority Roma population is in the country and how desperate the need is for new policies on social inclusion.

Executive director of the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) Dezideriu Gergely told IPS: “Walls such as these in Slovakia or anywhere else are not only physical barriers but also psychological dividing lines, an illusory policy of protecting ‘us’ from ‘them’ which hinders any possible social inclusion of Roma in their respective societies.

“There are 13 other walls in Slovakia. They should all be removed. Governments and local authorities must invest their time and energy into developing inclusive policies that work, and discourage segregation in every manner possible.”

The wall in Kosice is the latest in a number that have gone up in locations across Slovakia with large Roma communities. Some have been financed by private individuals and built on private property, but many are erected using public funds.

International rights groups have repeatedly criticised the walls and called for their removal. But successive governments have failed to act on the issue.

Critics say that while politicians publicly call for racial equality and minority rights to be upheld, in reality little concrete is done to address the issue of Roma segregation and the condition of the estimated 400,000 Roma across the country – almost a tenth of Slovakia’s population.

As in many other parts of Eastern Europe, Roma in Slovakia claim that they face systematic discrimination at all levels of society. Some schools in Slovakia and other countries in the region are de facto segregated, with Roma educated in separate classes.

Many Roma live in poverty, sometimes in what are effectively shanty towns or on estates such as those in Kosice near where the new wall was put up. Criminality among such poor communities is a problem.

But in places where walls have been put up there has been no effect on problems with crime, according to local media. Police say they cannot verify the claim though, as they do not keep records of ethnicity when recording crimes.

Activists say that the walls are not just ineffective but that they simply reinforce divisions in society and prejudices against the Roma.

Laco Oravec of the Bratislava-based anti-racism and human rights advocacy group the Milan Simecka Foundation, told IPS: “These walls are more a symbolic than physical barrier, they won’t stop anyone physically walking through a particular area.

“But their symbolism is of course very dangerous and negative for the inclusion of the minority population.”

He added that the only way to improve the situation would be to ensure more is done to include Roma in society. “The walls always go up in places where not much effort has been taken to deal with Roma inclusion. These walls are the consequences of not dealing with Roma inclusion and the expression of a deep frustration on both sides.”

Local authorities’ approach to inclusion is generally one of apathy or ignorance, rights groups argue, with a complete lack of any systematic approaches to minority inclusion.

The Kosice municipality was recently criticized by Slovakia’s human rights ombudsman for demolishing a Roma settlement in Kosice under environmental laws, classifying homes as communal waste.

Kosice is home to a notorious conurbation of housing estates where Roma live. Criminality and anti-social behaviour is commonplace and there are often conflicts between authorities and residents while water, gas and electricity supplies are regularly stopped over claims of non-payment and theft.

The continued absence of any long-term programmes is only deepening already existing divides and prejudices among the majority non-Roma population in areas where anti-social behaviour is a problem.

Oravec said: “It should not be forgotten that it is hard from the non-Roma majority as well. They often face criminal activity in situations like this and they are sometimes as big a victim as the Roma in this all.”

For the meantime, the fate of the wall in Kosice remains unclear. The local council which had the wall built has denied that it is anti-Roma. It says the wall is a response to years of complaints from local residents.

But the higher Kosice city authority has said the wall was built without planning permission and a decision will soon be made on whether it should be legalised or pulled down.

It has also invited European Commission (the executive arm of the European Union) representatives to come to the city to see at first hand the problems caused by parts of the local community behaving anti-socially.

Roma rights activists believe that even if the wall is removed, it is not just one wall which needs to come down.

The ERRC’s Gergely told IPS: “These walls are a reflection of the misconceptions about and negative views of Roma. They clearly spell out for Roma that they are unwanted in their own countries…these walls segregate the Roma from the rest of society.

“In the very near future, Europe will be celebrating the 24th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This should be marked by taking down dividing walls in Europe that separate Roma from the rest of the community.”

A Roma stall for used clothes in Bucharest. Segregation in schools means Roma children grow up to find few decent jobs. Credit: Claudia Ciobanu/IPS.

By Pavol Stracansky
PRAGUE, May 4 2013 (IPS)

As the Czech government comes under fire for apparently backtracking on commitments to inclusive education, Roma children and teenagers continue to be systematically shut out of Eastern Europe’s mainstream education system.

A string of recent court rulings has revealed the depth of the problem – and should have forced governments into action to redress the situation.

But despite these, and calls from bodies like the European Court of Human Rights for authorities to ensure Roma have proper access to mainstream schooling, there has been a lack of any serious action, NGOs and rights groups say.

“Research has been done in a number of countries documenting segregation and court judgements have confirmed that discrimination in access to education is a common practice.

“Governments need to take quick steps to stop discriminatory practices,” Jana Vargovcikova, Advocacy Coordinator at Amnesty International Czech Republic, told IPS.

Roma segregation at schools has been well documented with reports by Amnesty International and other groups highlighting widespread systematic segregation at schools across the former Eastern bloc.“Governments need to take quick steps to stop discriminatory practices"

Meanwhile, recent court rulings have confirmed individual cases of educational discrimination of Roma in countries such as Croatia, Greece, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.

The discrimination ranges from overt segregation where Roma children have been taught in separate classes at mainstream schools, to the placement of Roma children in schools for the mentally handicapped – noted by the European Court of Human Rights as being widespread – because of systemically flawed and discriminatory testing.

One study by the Open Society Foundation claimed Roma children in Slovakia and the Czech Republic were 28 and 27 times more likely, respectively, to be put in special schools than non-Roma pupils. Another study by the Czech School Inspectorate from 2011 suggested that more than 3,000 pupils in such schools had been placed there without any testing at all.

Children as young as six or seven can be sent to these schools – renamed ‘practical schools’ recently in what critics say was a merely cosmetic change to the education system – and they have been repeatedly criticised for offering a limited curriculum and effectively preventing children reaching their education potential, deepening a cycle of poverty and deprivation among Roma.

According to a 2009 study from the Czech Institute for Information on Education and the Ministry of Education, only 1 percent of Roma children from practical schools go on to secondary schools providing full school-leaving qualifications as opposed to 30 percent of Roma children from normal elementary schools.

Ciprian Necula, a 32-year-old Roma activist living in Bucharest who works on projects to help end discrimination against the Roma in Romania, told IPS what happened to Roma children placed in special schools in his country.

He said: “Just as one example, in Dumbraveni, central Romania, around 500 Roma kids go to special needs schools although they are normal. This is because they only speak the Roma language and would not fit in at normal schools and their parents are happy because their kids go to a school where they get a warm meal.

“But when they get to high school age they do not know how to read or write, only how to draw.”

However, Roma parents are often happy to send their children to such schools because they are poorly informed of what it will mean to their child’s educational development to attend such a school and also out of fear of their child being bullied in a normal school or because the costs of sending them to a mainstream school further away would be too high.

The Czech government had previously pledged to phase out ‘special schools’ as part of a commitment to inclusive education.

But comments just a few weeks ago from the Czech government’s plenipotentiary for human rights, Monika Simunkova, suggest that the process of closing ‘practical schools’ will have to be pushed back from an original target of 2015.

NGOs fear that the government is now backsliding on its commitments to ending discrimination under pressure from non-Roma parents, teachers from practical schools and special psychologists who recently garnered over 70,000 signatures for a petition against the closing of practical schools.

They say though that fear of closing the schools is irrational as the phasing out of the school should be carried out in conjunction with mainstream schools being given the support to allow them to provide children with the necessary help to meet their individual needs.

Amnesty International, the European Roma Rights Centre and the Open Society Justice Initiative last month sent an open letter to the Czech government calling on it to implement a moratorium on placements of Roma children with disabilities in practical schools, and undertake a comprehensive review of the system to ensure compliance with international and regional standards on education and non-discrimination.

The government has yet to respond to the letter.

However, there have been some examples of positive recent change on educational discrimination in the region. In Sarisske Michalany in Slovakia, one school where Roma children were until last year taught in separate classes on separate floors and were served separate lunches, has now fully integrated all non-Roma students following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.

And local NGOs say that, as they had hoped, the situation there is ‘positive’ with Roma children being provided fully inclusive education.

Stefan Ivanco of the Centre for Civil and Human Rights (Poradna), told IPS: “The school has started the process of introducing inclusive education principles and desegregation and what is also positive, so far there has been no indication of any ‘white flight’ or non-Roma pupils leaving to go to other schools.”

Yomara receives tutoring in the Portada Alta school in Málaga, Spain. Credit: Inés Benítez/IPS

By Inés Benítez
MÁLAGA, Spain , Dec 11 2012 (IPS)

Daniel introduces himself as a “gypsy and guitarist,” Francisco José wants to become a doctor, Yomara timidly says she likes to cook, and María has no idea what she wants to study.

The 12 to 17-year-old students at this school in the southern Spanish city of Málaga belong to the Roma or gypsy community, which is marked by high dropout and truancy rates.

Despite “noteworthy progress” in educational coverage among this ethnic group in the last 30 years, only 20 percent of youngsters who start secondary school – the first four years of which are compulsory, from ages 12 to 16 – go on to graduate, Humberto García, with the Gypsy Secretariat Foundation (FSG), told IPS.

And he added that not all Roma children enrol in secondary school.

The Council of Europe estimates that the Roma number 725,000 in Spain – 1.57 percent of the population of 46 million.

Although members of this ethic group can be found in every trade and profession, many work as street vendors in markets or as waste pickers of scrap metal and cardboard, which they sell for recycling.

“I didn’t go to high school and I don’t want my kids to be like me; I want them to be able to relate to others and become something in life,” 44-year-old Antonia Martín told IPS.

She is the mother of Yomara (16), José (15) and Jesús (24). She also has a two-year-old grandson.

At her side, her husband Antonio Campos, whose parents were basket-makers and who has worked at a golf course on the Málaga coast since he was 17, says “the gypsy mentality has to change. They think they have to live like our grandparents did. But today there are more opportunities, and we can live better, with more education, and receiving more respect.

“Being a waste picker, junk collector or street vendor is not a good life – it’s feast today, famine tomorrow,” said Campos, who called for “breaking down the barriers” imposed by the traditional lifestyle of Spain’s gypsies, or calós.

Caló is the language of Spain’s gypsies, who gradually lost their Romani language. It is also another name for the Roma community in this country.

In Spain, the term gitano or gypsy is not considered derogatory, although that does not mean that this country is free of the discrimination suffered by the Roma, Europe’s largest ethnic minority.

Until the end of General Francisco Franco’s dictatorship in 1975 and the adoption of a new constitution in 1978, the Roma people did not have the same rights as the rest of the population.

But since then, school enrolment has climbed from extremely low levels to 93 percent today.

“Education and employment are two essential factors for the integration of the gypsy community,” said the FSG’s García, whose Promociona (Promote) programme works with students, families and schools to lower dropout and repetition rates.

The programme is active in 300 schools in 27 towns and cities around Spain. In Málaga the programme has a staff of four women who work with around 50 students and their families and teachers.

The four workers arrange home visits with the parents and tutoring workshops in the classroom, like the one that brings together Daniel, Yomara, María, Francisco José and other students in the Portada Alta school in Málaga every Tuesday.

“We are focused on fighting truancy and getting the families involved, because they don’t see the importance of education,” biology teacher Isabel Passas, from the Guadalmedina school, where 80 percent of the students are Roma, told IPS.

Passas lamented that a majority of the girls drop out by the age of 14, when they are married off in arranged marriages and start having children of their own.

Martín doesn’t want her 16-year-old daughter Yomara to get married yet. “I won’t let her get married so young, and she doesn’t want to either. It’s really backwards to get married and have children so young; there’s time enough for that,” she said.

When she was little, Martín, who comes from a family of 10 children, used to help her mother sell fruit and clothing on the streets.

Many parents depend on their children’s help in street vending, and pull them out of school early, the vice principal of the Portada Alta school, María Victoria Toscazo, told IPS.

The economic crisis that is rocking Spain has also hurt the traditional open-air markets.

According to Campos, who has relatives who work as market vendors, “people are hardly selling anything, and competition (from immigrants) is really tough.”

The study “Gypsy population, employment and social inclusion”, published this year by the FSG, reported that unemployment among the Roma in Spain grew nearly threefold between 2005 and 2011, to 36.4 percent.

And while unemployment among the Roma was five percentage points above the overall unemployment rate in 2005, today the difference is 14 percentage points.

“The crisis has affected everyone, but it has had a more severe impact on the most vulnerable,” said García.

Moreover, “society still has a really negative view of us, and social rejection is strong,” he added.

It is hard to encourage Roma youngsters to continue studying when they are aware that discrimination will likely make it difficult for them to find a job.

Language and literature teacher Antonio Blanco, who has spent four years teaching Roma children at the Guadalmedina school, stressed the importance of forging emotional ties and creating a pleasant environment, to keep children in school.

Nevertheless, the Roma in Spain are better off than in the rest of the European Union.

“There are problems, but not as many as in France, Romania or Portugal,” a source at the FSG told IPS.

Like the rest of the population, Spain’s Roma people are covered by the universal public healthcare system and have access to affordable housing programmes for low-income families.

Most Roma live in working-class neighbourhoods, and only a small proportion actually live in slums. But the stereotype of the wandering, thieving gypsy lingers.

The question is how far to integrate in a society that discriminates against them. Martín’s relatives say she and her family are “apayaos” (roughly meaning assimilated to the “payo” or non-gypsy culture).

Her husband argues that “gypsies should not be all bunched together, but spread around, to adapt to another way of life.”