The Committee on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination is monitoring the implementation of the
homonymous convention. Their task is to investigate the racial inequality and
non-discrimination. Every State party needs to submit a regular report, mainly
every second year, on how their process of implementing those rights is going.
In return the Committee is announcing their concerns and recommendations.
Furthermore they have three additional ways of monitoring the states: the early-warning
procedure, the examination of inter-state complaints and the examination of
individual complaints.
In this framework, the ERRC (European Roma Rights Centre) has handed in its
parallel report
concerning Slovakia. The Committee is holding two sessions per year, and
this report should be considered at the 82nd Session which will takes place from
the 11th February to the 1st March 2013.
The Report concerning Slovakia
In the Report they included the topics housing, education, police violence
against Roma, and the overrepresentation of Romani children in the Child
Protection System. What they first point out is that the Slovak Republic has
done little or almost nothing to act according to the concerns and
recommendations of the Committee form the last session and that the concerns
about the Slovakian government are even rising instead of decreasing.
When it comes to housing, the ERRC is criticizing that in the segregated
settlements there is a lack of fundamental elements of a suitable for human
beings living standards. What they mean by this is that the settlements are not
provided with adequate drinking water, they are excluded from public services
such as a bus, postal services, groceries and pharmacies and the settlements
lack infrastructure such as paved roads, electricity, heating and sewage systems.
They even started to walls and barriers to segregate the Roma from the rest
of the society, so far 10 such walls have been built.
Furthermore they are under the constant threat of a forced eviction. As an
example the ERRC is mentioning the eviction of Nižné Kapustniky in Košice. It
took place on the 30th October of 2012 and was ordered by the municipality. It
made 156 people homeless and this problem has not been solved until today. “The
ERRC requested the Košice municipality to provide relevant information on the
process that preceded the demolition, its legal basis and what actions (if any)
were taken after the eviction to avoid making the evicted Romani people homeless.
To date, no response has been received.“
This is especially interesting in the context of Košice being the European
Capital of Culture 2013. It looks like they just wanted to get rid of this
settlement as it could harm their so carefully constructed image of a role model
city for culture in Europe.
The next point that the ERRC was stressing is the segregation from Roma
children into only Roma schools or classes and that there is a disproportionate
amount of Roma children, who are schools for children with mild mental
disabilities or special needs, the same applies for the special classes in
mainstream elementary schools.
But the Roma in Slovakia also racially faced attacks and violence from the
police. One incident, which was monitored by the ERRC, took place in Košice in
March 2009. A group of Romani boys were physically abused by the police, they
ordered to hit and kiss each other, and finally ordered to strip. This incident
was captured on video and the trial still goes on but also here the Košice
District Court and the Ministry of Justice have failed to respond to repeated
requests from the ERRC for updates.
The increase of racially motivated attacks against Romani individuals is
shocking. “Slovakia reported […] the number of racially motivated acts
increased by 127.82 per cent in comparison with 2010.” The most violent incident
was in June 2012 where a policeman shot three people dead and wounded two others.
The investigations of these racist acts are not dissatisfactory. One example for
this was the case of
Koky v. Slovakia with which the European Court of Human Rights was dealing
and decided in favour of Koky.
The last point that the ERRC is addressing in its report is the
overrepresentation of Romani children in the child protection system. Romani
children account for 82% of all children in the State care institutions in
Slovakia. The reintegration of those children in their original family is
unlikely and because of their ethnicity they are not getting adopted, which
leaves them to spend their entire childhood in those institutions. This
overrepresentation is not just caused by the poverty and school absenteeism but
also by the discrimination from the side of the social care workers.
Further reports by the ERRC
Furthermore the ERRC has handed in its
report on the Russian Federation, which will be discussed in the same
session as Slovakia. The ERRC is pointing out, for the Russian Federation, that
the biggest problem that the Roma are facing is the lack of personal
documentation. This includes birth certificates, and without it the children are
not allowed to go to school, passports, residence permits and registrations,
which prevents Roma from accessing employment, social allowances and healthcare.
In addition the ERRC has also submitted its
parallel report concerning Macedonia, which should be considered by the
Committee on the
Elimination of Discrimination Against Women at its 54th session, which takes
place in the same period of time, from the 11th February to the 1st March 2013.
Here the ERRC points out that especially the Roma women suffer from
discrimination in access to education, health care, employment and issues of
violence are the main problems for them. The ERRC stresses that “according to
the UNDF-WB European Commission regional Roma survey 2011, 70% of Romani women
and girls aged from 15 to 64 are unemployed, compared to 35% among non-Romani
girls and women.” The Macedonian Government also adopted an Action Plan on Roma
Housing but still 69% live in accommodations with less than 10m2 per family
members and especially in the cities they Roma are still concentrated and
located in segregated settlement.
