Romani Women Discuss Women's Rights Action

29 July 2004

Larry Olomoofe¹

In March 2004 the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) in co-operation with the Network Women's Program (NWP) of the Open Society Institute held a human rights training workshop for Romani women activists. Twelve participants from six countries –Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Macedonia, Hungary, Romania, and Serbia and Montenegro – discussed strategies to advance Romani women's rights and place rights issues of concern to Romani women on the agendas of national governments and international organisations. The primary purpose of the workshop was to begin to draw more attention to the issues affecting women within the Roma rights paradigm, as well as to create a discursive space where these issues could be debated by Romani women activists. The workshop opened with introductions by Dimitrina Petrova, ERRC's Executive Director, and Viktória Mohácsi, Commissioner for Integration in the Hungarian Ministry of Education. Ms Petrova's contribution was a philosophical account of the genesis of Roma rights and an attempt at placing women's rights within this discourse. She provided some theoretical grounding to the participants in the topics that were to be discussed over the course of the workshop. Ms Mohácsi gave a personal account of her experience as a young Romani woman initially affiliated with Roma rights nongovernmental organisations, including the ERRC, and subsequently working within the national government at the Ministry of Education. Her account was one of personal achievement and commitment despite the many obstacles she faced along the way.

Romani Women and the Rights Movement

At the outset of the training, the participants were invited to analyse the situation of women's rights in general and specific problems pertaining to Romani women in particular across the Central and Eastern Europe region. Issues discussed included domestic violence, sexual discrimination, and racial discrimination. Other topics included the lack of human rights knowledge amongst Romani women, underage marriages, lack of education, Roma traditions, and police brutality.

"Women and the Romani Movement" was a presentation by Ms Miranda Vuolasranta, Special Advisor on Roma at the Social Cohesion Directorate of the Council of Europe and advisor to the Finnish government. She provided an historical overview of the evolution of the Romani question on the international scene. Hers was a searing critique of the amounts of money dedicated to the "Roma issue" and the relatively little return in terms of sustainable solutions to the problems faced by Romani communities, including women, in Europe. She pointed the fact that there were barely any women involved in the process and that there were a number of "gadje"(non-Roma) representing Romani interests – academically, politically, and socially – and that this had to be challenged and changed by Roma generally and women specifically.

On the issue of representation of Roma at international level, she stressed:

There is no high level Roma representation. At this moment, it is dangerous for others to forget about Roma. The Roma voice should be heard. A high Roma Forum should be created at a European level. This was proposed by Mrs. Halonen – President of Finland in the year 2001 before the EU General Assembly. […] The member states agreed that we needed such a forum. If we depend on governments only, we are not going to be able to create Roma policy and express our own opinion. Now in the early April an agreement should be signed. Each country would be able to elect three persons independent from the government and one of them should be a woman. What will be the criteria to elect a woman activist for the Roma Forum? Is it enough to be a woman? We must be trained how to advocate and what to advocate about. To know the issues we are trying to solve.

"Roma Rights: Development and Challenges" was the topic of the exposition by Dr Dimitrina Petrova, the ERRC's Executive Director, who attempted to provide the conceptual framework for the development of a women's rights agenda within the current Roma rights discourse. The question Dr Petrova posed for the participants was whether the Romani women's rights initiative should adopt a similar pattern of development, i.e., establish a separate discursive paradigm dedicated solely to Romani women's issues within the broader women's rights discourse, or whether it would be more logical and practical to utilise the processes and terms of reference that currently exist within the various rights paradigms.

The 2003 Romani Women's Forum and the Decade of Roma Inclusion was an overview by Ms Azbija Memedova of the Romani Women's Forum held in conjunction with the World Bank/OSI conference "Roma in Enlarged Europe" in June 2003. Ms Memedova outlined the processes that could be beneficial for the pursuit of Romani women's issues within the Decade of Roma Inclusion as well as the areas of concern that Romani women activists should focus their attention upon. She stressed that Romani women should consider:

• Data collection and dissemination;
• Communication and outreach to local Romani communities in general, and women in particular;
• Fundraising for initiatives under the aegis of the Decade;
• Roma participation.

Rights-Based Approach to Romani Women's Issues

In a series of sessions, the participants were introduced to the major international mechanisms for the protection of human rights and their pertinence to Romani women's issues.

From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the Beijing Process was a group work session which began with a presentation by Ms Mona Nicoara, Consultant to the ERRC/NWP, on the historical development of women's rights within the international human rights movement since the inception of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR). The participants were introduced to the many policy developments and shifts revolving around women's rights, the adoption of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the 1993 Vienna conference and culminating in the 1995 Beijing Conference and ensuing Process.

The participants were tasked with discussing provisions from the UDHR. Some specific questions the groups had to ponder were:

• Do the UDHR provisions really cover everyone?
• How have different governments and societies implemented the UDHR?
• What are the potential or real obstacles to the full implementation of the rights proclaimed by the UDHR?

How to use the UN CEDAW was the subject of a series of presentations by Ms Nicoleta BiĹŁu (Romani CRISS, Romania), Ms Slavica Vasić (BIBIJA Roma Women's Center, Serbia), and Ms Alphia Abdikeeva (EU Monitoring and Advocacy Program, Open Society Institute, Hungary) on the practical steps involved in applying the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) to local scenarios. The session was an attempt at drawing the sometimes hidden linkages between local issues with the often distant-seeming international [legal] process. The presenters highlighted different women's issues concerning them and showed how their pursuit of justice has been assisted by using the international procedures available to them through the CEDAW.

Advocacy in the UN system was the subject of a joint presentation by Ms Nicoleta BiĹŁu and Ms Mona Nicoara. The aim of the session was to provide participants with an overview of UN mechanisms such as the Human Rights Committee (HRC) and the Committee for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and how they can be applied in cases of human rights violations against Romani women. The hope was to provide participants with a sense of the types of NGO interventions at the UN level as well as to offer practical information and examples of the procedures available to NGOs for advocacy work.

The OSCE and Roma Women's Rights: The Case of Trafficking was a presentation by Ms Jyothi Kanics from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), who provided information on how women from vulnerable groups such as the Roma are victims of trafficking. Ms Kanics made an outline of the factors involved in trafficking and attempted to provide answers to questions such as what human rights are violated through trafficking. Legal questions, such as the "consent" of the victim, were addressed also by Ms Kanics. She argued that consent would be a moot point, since the victim would be coerced through various methods to comply with the wishes of the traffickers.

Roma Women's Advocacy in an Enlarged European Union was the topic of the open forum at the Central European University held as part of the workshop. This was a debate about the need to mainstream women/gender issues in the human rights discourse and work. The presenters provided specific insights into their strategies for including Romani women's issues in rights-based advocacy initiatives.

Advocacy Strategies

Several training sessions dealt with practical examples of effective advocacy work. During the course of these sessions, the participants had to grapple with the concept of effective advocacy and how to ensure that their actions would have a longer lasting impact for the peoples and interests that they were supposed to be representing.

The ERRC's Executive Director made an overview of the ERRC's advocacy of Roma rights at the international level. She talked about the origins of the ERRC as well as the situation regarding Romani communities prior to the ERRC's establishment in order to illustrate the impact of the organisation in terms of achieving its advocacy goals. In doing this, she also indicated the nature of the problems faced by an "international" NGO acting in defense of the human rights of a single ethnic group. Among others, she also confronted the main criticism of the ERRC, since its inception, that it was not representative of the Romani communities whose rights it purported to defend. She provided the following explanation for this: "In the beginning we needed detachment. We wanted the researchers to be gadje. We were afraid that the people would be biased against Roma…."

National advocacy challenges was subject of a session on the various issues faced by Romani women in the countries from which the participants were drawn. The workshop was facilitated by Ms Nicoleta BiĹŁu and Ms Isabella Banica of the OSI's Roma Participation Program. The purpose of the session was to assist participants in focussing on what they thought the main problems were in their countries, and in devising advocacy strategies to deal with them accordingly. Some of the problems discussed were domestic violence against women and children, and arranged marriages in the community. Ms Enisa Eminova, participant from Macedonia, formulated the goal of the Romani women's actions as follows:

We live between two worlds. We live between two fires. Can we be the creators of our own life? Who do I marry, who do I love? These are all not my choices! These are choices others take for me. What should we respect? The tradition or our own right to choose? We must educate our mothers, not the opposite.

Fact-finding as a basis for human rights advocacy was the focus of a session led by Ms Savelina Danova, ERRC Research and Policy Co-ordinator. The veracity of any advocacy campaign is based upon solid, honest fact-finding and monitoring. This was the basis of much of the ERRC's advocacy strategies and initiatives. Therefore, it was incumbent upon advocates and activists to conduct rigorous research in order to craft a water-tight advocacy initiative. Proper research is the cornerstone of any serious human rights NGO and should be placed at a premium. The issue of ethical procedures was discussed also, since monitoring and/or reporting organisations are bound by a range of ethical strictures.

Follow-up projects: Towards the end of the training, the participants explored possibilities for various "follow-up" initiatives that could be pursued on their return home. Schooling of Romani children and girls in particular emerged as the main theme for the various programmes contemplated by the participants. Motivation of parents and children to study and advocating school support for Romani children and guarantees for access to quality education, have been identified as priorities for the future work of the Romani women's advocates.

Evaluation

The workshop was concluded with an extended period for evaluations led by Larry Olomoofe (ERRC). The first part was devoted to personal evaluations where the participants completed a questionnaire that covered a range of questions about the workshop. The second stage of the evaluation process was a broader group discussion where participants were encouraged to provide on-the-spot assessments of the programme and participate in a general discussion about the merits and demerits of the project. Some of the issues discussed included programme content, length, followup initiatives and support from the organisers for other women's rights workshops in the future.

Endnotes:

1. Larry Olomoofe is Human Rights Trainer at the ERRC.