UN Human Rights Committee to Review Macedonia

20 March 2008

ERRC Raises Concern about Roma in Macedonia

20 March 2008, Budapest: On 14 March, the ERRC submitted a comprehensive parallel report on the human rights situation of Roma in the Republic of Macedonia to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, for use during the Committee’s upcoming review of Macedonia’s compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 

The report is based on monitoring of the human rights problems of Roma in Macedonia, undertaken in the last years by the ERRC and its partner organisations, including the National Roma Centrum, the Civil Society Research Center, the Roma Centre of Skopje and the Open Society Institute’s Network Women’s Program. 

The report focuses on the inadequacy of legal guarantees against discrimination, ill-treatment of Roma by law enforcement officials and subsequent impunity of the perpetrators, and violence and degrading treatment of Romani women and children by state and non-state actors. It also includes a series of recommendations for the Macedonian government to improve the human rights situation of Roma in the country.

The Human Rights Committee’s review follows a recent assessment visit to Macedonia by the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner and precedes an April 2008 review by the UN Committee against Torture. 

ERRC work in Macedonia has been funded by the Swedish International Development Agency, the Open Society Institute, the Sigrid Rausing Trust, the European Union and UNIFEM. 

The full text of the report is available at: View it (Acrobat pdf format)!

For further information, please contact: 

Tara Bedard, ERRC Programmes Coordinator, tara.bedard@errc.org 

Anita Danka, ERRC Staff Attorney, anita.danka@errc.org