ERRC welcomes report on access to public services

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Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 10:37:57 +0300 (EEST)
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Subject: ERRC welcomes report on access to public services

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>

Original sender: European Roma Rights Center <[email protected]>

ERRC welcomes report on access to public services


The European Roma Rights Center (ERRC), an international public
interest law organisation which monitors the situation of Roma in
Europe and provides legal defence in instances of human rights abuse,
welcomes the publication of "On the Margins: Roma and Public Services
in Romania, Bulgaria and Macedonia". The report, written by Open
Society Institute consultant and ERRC board member Ina Zoon, edited by
Mark Norman Templeton and published by the Open Society Institute, is
a call to action to improve Romani access to social protection, health
care and housing. With reference to the report, ERRC Executive
Director Dimitrina Petrova stated, "On the Margins marks a watershed
in documenting abuses of economic and social rights against Roma in
southeastern Europe. Denial of the core issues of discrimination in
the provision of basic services is a strategy no longer available to
the governments concerned." The report additionally includes a
supplement on housing in the Czech Republic. The full text of the
report is available on the Internet at: 
http://www.soros.org/romaandpublicservices.html, and hard copies of
the report are available by contacting: [email protected]. The
executive summary of On the Margins follows:

The Roma, comprising between 2 and 7 percent of the populations of
Romania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia, generally are the poorest of the
poor with the lowest level of physical health and the most miserable
accommodations. As the most vulnerable social group in these
countries, Roma are overrepresented in all categories in need of
social protection: the very poor, the long-term unemployed, the
unskilled, the uneducated, members of large families, and individuals
without residence permits, identity documents, or citizenship papers.
In all three countries, existing government programs to improve the
lot of the unfortunate and the downtrodden, if implemented fairly and
justly, would have to focus their efforts on the Roma. Social safety
nets, applied without favor or prejudice, would catch the Roma at a
rate proportional to the challenges that they face. At the very least,
in a system devoid of ethnic bias, the Roma would benefit from these
government programs at a rate similar to that of the rest of the
population.

Instead, many of the social protection, health care, and housing
programs in these countries effectively screen out the Roma from
support they desperately need. Mobility patterns and practices can
make it difficult for Roma to meet social protection requirements and
to obtain or keep official documents such as birth certificates and
identity cards-all of which governments may require for receipt of
social support. Governments may define the family unit in such a way
that those who are indigent and not married in a civil ceremony -
which includes the vast majority of young Romani families - cannot
qualify for family benefits under health care laws. Governments may
characterize long-standing Romani dwellings as "temporary" because
they are not part of the official city plan, which may result in Roma
not establishing official residency and not receiving certain types of
benefits.

Furthermore, some government officials and their representatives abuse
their discretionary powers. Some social workers overestimate the true
wealth of Romani clients, thereby disqualifying them from receiving
social support. Some doctors and health care personnel refuse to
accept Roma on their patient rolls and will not treat them, even under
emergency conditions. Some municipal officials allocate less
transportation and sanitation services to Romani neighhorhoods than to
others with similarly sized populations.

Governments, needless to say, can make choices about the types and
levels of services that they will provide. They also may need to
adjust those programs as they undergo transitions from one economic
system to another. And they may need to change their policies in
response to unexpected social and political challenges.

But government policies and government officials should not - and
legally cannot - deprive Roma of access to public services that are
available to the rest of the population. Indirect and direct
discrimination in the provision of those benefits worsens the living
conditions of Roma, who, as a group, are already most in need of
social, health, and housing support. In the past few years, however,
instead of helping, governments have withdrawn assistance and used
their energies to keep the Roma on the margins of society.

This report documents the ways in which the Romanian, Bulgarian, and
Macedonian governments and their representatives discriminate against
the Roma in the provision of social protection benefits, health care,
and housing. The supplement describes similar discrimination against
the Roma in access to housing in the Czech Republic. The report shows
how particular, facially neutral policies have a disparate impact on
the Roma, and how certain government officials discriminate directly
against Romani claimants requesting services.

1. Legal Standards

This study begins by outlining relevant international, regional, and
national antidiscrimination legal standards and principles. It
establishes that most forms of discrimination on the basis of race or
ethnicity violate international and European law. It shows that with
regard to the provision of social benefits, international treaty
bodies have stated that governments should not distinguish among
recipients on the basis of their race directly or indirectly. The
report shows that the constitutions of the countries under review
affirm the principle of equal treatment under law and incorporate
ratified international human rights treaties directly into domestic
law. Nonetheless, despite the clear international and regional
standards and constitutional provisions, only Romania has developed
general antidiscrimination legislation, and it remains to he seen how
meaningful those laws will be.

2. Social Protection

The report assesses the extent to which governments discriminate
against the Roma or fail to provide minimum support through social
protection programs. It outlines the level of benefits provided under
particular programs; reviews eligibility criteria for particular forms
of support; discusses how these criteria relate to characteristics of
the Romani population; reviews prohlems faced hy Roma in complying
with these procedures; identifies cases in which regional or municipal
administrators appear to have used their power in an arhitrary and
discriminatory manner; and reviews administrative and legal appeals
processes. The key findings with regard to social protection are:

- Poverty and unemployment rates in Romania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia
are two to two-and-a-half times higher for Romani families than for
the rest of the population.
- Governments provide a variety of benefits to persons in need,
including social support, food pantry distributions, monthly
assistance for the payment of rent, support for heating, emergency
help, child allowances, additional benefits for families with
children, maternity benefits, and birth grants.
- The amount of each benefit is insufficient to cover the overall
needs of the beneficiary.
- In determining eligibility for benefits, governments impose a number
of criteria, most of which have a disparate impact on the Roma. These
criteria include: a means test; a domicile requirement; work
responsibilities; identification documents; limitations on the size of
living quarters; and bans on foreign travel, corporate ownership, and
housing sales.
- There are a variety of additional harriers for Roma in obtaining
social protection benefits, including difficulties in accessing
government facilities; forced choices between types of social support;
allocation of funds by the government to other socially disadvantaged
groups; delay or nonallocation of funds; time limits on the receipt of
benefits; poor relations between Roma and social workers; and lack of
knowledge about these programs in the Romani community.
- Administrative and legal appeals processes are seldom used and
rarely result in redress.

3. Health Care

The study assesses the extent to which governments or private persons
discriminate against Romani patients and interfere with their ability
to obtain adequate health care. It reviews the general status of
Romani health in each of the three countries; highlights the relative
cost of medical care and discusses health insurance plans; describes
the view of Romani patients put forth by the media; identifies cases
of direct discrimination against Romani patients by doctors and other
medical personnel; discusses how legal provisions impede the ability
of Roma to receive health care; outlines other barriers to Romani
access to health care; shows problems that Roma confront in obtaining
emergency care; and discusses general levels of staffing, equipment,
and facilities in Romani neighhorhoods. The key findings with regard
to health care are:

- The health of the Roma is generally worse than the health of the
population at large. Their life expectancy is many years shorter than
the life expectancy of the majority. Their children have a higher
infant mortality rate and a higher rate of vitamin deficiencies,
malnutrition, anemia, dystrophy, and rickets than their non-Romani
peers.
- Governments have health care and health insurance systems designed
to provide treatment to persons who receive social support benefits or
are otherwise in need.
- Many Roma, however, do not receive the medical treatment they need
due to direct and indirect discrimination.
- The media has created an image of Romani patients as people who
cannot follow doctors' directions or respect the rights of other
patients.
- Some health care professionals and facilities discriminate directly
against the Roma. They may decline to accept Romani patients and may
subject Romani patients to verbal abuse and degrading treatment. They
may segregate patients on the basis of race and decline to provide
medical certificates documenting injurie inflicted during racist
attacks.
- Health insurance systems predicate coverage on eligibility
requirements that may have a disparate impact on the Roma, such as
marital and citizenship status, family size, and level of educational
achievement.
- There are a variety of additional harriers for Roma in accessing
health care services. These harriers include lack of information in
the Romani community, unlawful practices of the local authorities that
lead to loss of health insurance or the impossibility of obtaining
health insurance without payment of a contribution, and abuse of power
by social workers.
- Roma do not have equal access to emergency medical facilities.
Emergency center operators often refuse to send an ambulance when they
assume the request is for a Romani patient, and they give priority to
calls from non-Romani neighborhoods. Doctors and nurses avoid,
postpone, or refuse to attend to patients in remote Romani
communities, especially at night.
- If they exist, health care facilities in Romani neighborhoods are
understaffed and underequipped as compared to the facilities serving
non-Romani neighborhoods.

4. Housing

This report assesses the extent to which governments discriminate
against the Roma or fail to address the inadequate housing available
to the Roma. It mentions the national strategic plans for improving
housing conditions for the Roma; outlines the types of housing
conditions for Roma in a given country; reviews issues involved in
property ownership; examines particular communities that suffer from
segregation, such as those separated from other areas by walls or
displaced en masse; details differential treatment in the provision of
basic municipal services; and describes harassment of Roma in their
homes and apartments. The key findings with regard to housing are:

- Poverty, overcrowding, and lack of infrastructure dominate Romani
neighborhoods. In many places, twice as many Roma live in half the
amount of space as the rest of the population. The housing itself is
often decrepit and barely inhahitable.
- Government strategies to address Romani housing problems are
nonexistent or lack substance.
- A large number of Romani families do not own the land on which their
houses are built and do not have building authorizations or proper
property contracts for their houses.
- An equally large number of Roma do not reside legally in the
apartments that they occupy.
- Roma have not received a fair share of the agricultural land
returned to those who once owned or worked it.
- A significant number of Roma live in segregated communities. Some of
the people in these communities were forcibly displaced from better
neighborhoods; others took up residence hecause they had no place else
to go. Many Romani communities are located near garbage dumps. In
other places, walls or other physical barriers separate the Romani
communities from the majority population.
- Some Romani settlements lack electricity. The houses may have been
built illegally, the residents do not have clear legal status, or the
electric company and local authorities failed to introduce electricity
into the Romani area while providing it to nearby non-Romani
dwellings. Local electric companies have installed antitheft devices
in Romani, and only in Romani, neighhorhoods.
- Municipal transportation networks do not reach many Romani
settlements. Buses often stop at the edge of Romani neighhorhoods.
Where there is puhlic transportation, the buses often do not run as
frequently and are of lower quality than those that serve other
neighhorhoods.
- Most garbage collection is less frequent in Romani neighhorhoods
than in non-Romani areas. Public health prohlems arise frequently from
insufficient solid waste disposal.
- In some Romani communities, people are forced to drink contaminated
water, to share one source of water among dozens of families, or to
travel considerable distances to reach the water source.
- Authorities and private gangs frequently invade Romani houses and
destroy Romani property.

5. Recommendations

The study concludes with a set of recommendations that call on the
countries to develop and implement meaningful legislation to protect
the Roma and other groups from public and private discrimination. The
report urges the governments to allocate appropriate funds to the
social protection, health care, and housing needs of their Romani
populations. It encourages government leaders to foster and strengthen
their relationships with Romani community leaders. And it calls on the
international community to lend technical expertise, financial
support, and monitoring mechanisms to bring about equality for the
Roma.

6. Supplement and Appendix

The supplement on housing in the Czech Republic confirms that similar
living conditions and discriminatory policies and practices exist
wherever there is a significant Romani population. The research on
Romani housing in the Czech Republic is part of an effort to study
access to public services by the Roma in other Central European
countries.

The study focuses on racial segregation practices, systematic
evictions, and the increasing ghettoization of Czech Roma. It
documents direct discrimination in the rental of municipal apartments.
It also documents the existence of dozens of local regulations that
bar access to housing to people without clean criminal records,
without a university education or without permanent residence. It
argues that the implementation of these regulations has a disparate
impact on Czech Roma, leading to indirect discrimination.

The appendix attempts to show, in descriptive rather than analytical
terms, what it is like to live in several types of Romani settlements
in Romania.

7. Methodology

This study is based on interviews that the author conducted in
Romania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia from October through December 1999.
Subsequent trips in 2000 to these three countries and the Czech
Republic, during which the author spoke with government officials,
legislators, social workers, Romani activists, and Romani residents,
verified and expanded on the information initially gathered. The
report also draws and builds on the work of several recent studies,
including Dena Ringold's report for the World Bank, Roma and
Transition in Central and Eastern Europe: Trends and Challenges, and
the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities' paper, OSCE Report
on the Situation of Roma and Sinti in the OSCE Area. The report,
except where noted, covers legal developments through August 2000.

Although the author undertook significant efforts to determine which
discriminatory practices occurred in which countries, it was
impossible to gather sufficient evidence ahout all types of practices
across all of the countries. Therefore it is important to note that
just because the discussion of a particular country does not establish
that a specific discriminatory practice takes place there, it does not
mean that Roma do not suffer from that practice in that country. This
written report focuses on what the author documented during her trips
to these regions, not on addressing the status of every problem faced
by the Roma in the countries under review.

Although the report presents the problems confronting the Roma in the
relatively neat categories of social protection, health care, and
housing, the reality is complex. The typical Roma faces all three
types of challenges - and more - every day. In the end, the only way
to improve the lot of the Roma is if Romani communities, national
governments, and the international community together take on the
massive problems of discrimination and poverty that beset the Roma.

____________________________________________

The European Roma Rights Center is an international public interest
law organisation which monitors the rights of Roma and provides legal
defence in cases of human rights abuse. For more information about the
European Roma Rights Center, visit the ERRC on the web at
http://errc.org.

European Roma Rights Center
1386 Budapest 62
P.O. Box 906/93
Hungary


Phone: +36 1 4132200
Fax:   +36 1 4132201

_____________________________________________

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