Roma Rights 3-4, 2002: Segregation and Desegregation

07 November 2002

Roma Rights 3-4/2002 addresses issues pertaining to segregation and desegregation of Roma in Europe.

Dimitrina Petrova, Executive Director of the ERRC, expressed the ERRC's position in the edition's editorial: "We see segregation as an obstacle to accessing rights and we fight to remove it. ...School desegregation in the view of the ERRC is the first step and the backbone of Romani integration. Without it, school success in a ghetto school is inadequate once the child is out in the larger world, competing with non-Roma for university placements or for jobs. Even if the receiving school proves to be a hostile environment for children, ERRC is opposed to any improvement of ghetto schools and insists that these have to be abolished in a short period of time not exceeding five to seven years. Eliminating the current educational disadvantage of the Roma created by segregated schooling must in our view be addressed as a matter of urgency. We do not believe in teaching tolerance first and applying the knowledge only after the lesson is learned. Societies as well as individuals will not learn to be more tolerant before they start to act as if they are. The best project of ethnic tolerance training is the lived experience of the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws and policies."

• In Defence of Desegregation (Dimitrina Petrova) 

• The Quality of Education in Romanian Schools with High Percentages of Romani Pupils (Mihai Surdu) 

• Low Standard Apartments as a Tool of Ethnic Segregation in the Czech Republic (Petr Víšek) 

• In the Dark: Segregating Roma in Lithuania (Egle Kristina Kucinskaite) 

• International Non-Discriminatory Guarantees in Education: Empty Vows or Effective Mechanisms? (Päivi Gynther)

• Fifty Years After Brown v. Board of Education (Bill Taylor) 

• Successful Romani School Desegregation: The Vidin Case (Donka Panayotova) 

• The Roads Before Romani Education: Thoughts after a Public Debate (Emil Cohen) 

• Costs and Effects of the Step By Step Roma Special Schools Initiative (Benjamin Levin) 

• Tenuous Living Conditions for Roma Throughout Greece (Theodoros Alexandridis) 

• Hungarian Villagers Enforce Mob Justice Solution to Prevent Roma from Moving in (Orsolya Szendrey) 

• Bosnia and Herzegovina * Bulgaria * Croatia * Czech Republic * Denmark * France * Germany * Greece * Hungary * Ireland * Italy * Kosovo * Lithuania * Macedonia * Romania * Russia * Serbia and Montenegro * Slovakia * Ukraine 

• Racial Segregation in Croatian Primary Schools: Romani Students Take Legal Action (Branimir Pleše)

• ERRC Action as Hungary Goes Before the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination 

• Grants Awarded 

• Grants Guidelines

• Roma Rights Summer University 2002 (Angéla Kóczé) 

• Participants' Evaluation 

• Rromenge Problemura Pala Edukacia Ande Europa (Romani-language translation of ERRC position paper "Barriers to the Education of Roma in Europe", submitted at the United Nations Special Session on Children, May 8-10, 2002) 

• Meet(ing) the ERRC (Andi Dobrushi) 

• Chronicle