Putting Romani Women's Rights on the Map

Introduction

Few minority groups in Europe face as much social, economic, and political discrimination as do Romani people. The situation is even worse for Romani women, who also must deal with sexism that further violates their human rights. There are encouraging signs, however, that local governments, nongovernmental organizations, international institutions, and the Romani community itself are taking steps to identify the most pressing problems affecting Romani women and developing strategies to improve their lives.

An important milestone in this process was the Roma Women's Forum held on June 29, 2003 in Budapest. Organized by the Open Society Institute's Network Women's Program, the forum brought together more than 100 Romani activists, donors, international human rights activists, and government representatives from Central and Eastern Europe—where most Roma currently live—as well as Western Europe and the United States. The forum marked one of the first times that Romani women presented their own comprehensive policy agendato high-level officials from regional governments and international agencies. Participants openly discussed long-ignored issues of great concern among Romani women, such as equal access to quality education, forced sterilization, and poverty. They also developed a set of recommendations for policymakers within the region and beyond.

The forum took place the day before a related two-day conference in Budapest titled "Roma in an Expanding Europe: Challenges for the Future." The conference focused on Romani integration into European society and was hosted by the Hungarian government and co-sponsored by the World Bank, the Open Society Institute (OSI), and the European Commission. The conference concluded with government representatives from Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, and Slovakia endorsing the "Decade of Roma Inclusion" initiative, which aims to provide a framework for governments, working in partnership with Roma citizens, to set their own goals for Romani integration.

Many of the key issues raised at the Roma Women's Forum were addressed during the conference, which gave further impetus for governments to consider the specific concerns of Romani women when developing future policies. This achievement demonstrated the extent to which Romani women are taking charge of their own lives to help themselves, their families, and their communities. Romani women's advocates were hopeful that the attendance of men—both Roma and non-Roma—at the forum and their apparent willingness to help women secure a place in the Romani community demonstrates a newfound understanding and sensitivity to Romani women's issues.

"For the first time, Roma women were equal to Roma men," said Enisa Eminova, a 21-year-old Romani activist and technology consultant for the Roma Information Project (RIP), managed by the Advocacy Project in Washington, DC. "We were given our own room and space to sit down and discuss our problems and what we struggle with, together with Roma men and other allies."


Forum Summary

The Roma Women's Forum's opening session focused primarily on the unique disadvantages that Romani women face—both as women and members of a long-oppressed ethnic minority.

Nicoletta Bitu, a consultant to the Romani rights NGO Romani Criss in Romania, criticized the general tendency to view Romani women's issues as Romani issues without examining the specific problems faced by Romani women. A similar point was raised by Azbija Memedova, a consultant to the OSI Network Women's Program "Roma Women's Initiative" and coordinator of the Roma Center of Skopje in Macedonia. Memedova challenged women's groups and national and regional structures devoted to gender equity to integrate the concerns of Romani women into their work.

Speakers argued for the appropriateness of using international human rights norms to overcome the double discrimination faced by Romani women. Dimitrina Petrova, executive director of the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC), highlighted the strategic advantages of a human rights-based approach for Romani women's agendas, noting that it is "the language of governments and [it] locks governments into legal obligations that provide effective levers for advocacy." The significant efforts to mainstream gender into human rights movements and to develop rights-based advocacy in the international women's movement also provide entry points for Romani women's activism, Petrova suggested.

The Roma Women's Forum was composed of four panels focusing on the following issues: education, economic empowerment, sexual and reproductive rights, and grassroots leadership and political participation. The panels and the forum's closing session are summarized in the following sections:


Education

The panel on education summarized the particular struggles faced by Romani girls throughout the region. Pressure to marry early, cultural obligations, and lack of female teachers as role models are among the root causes that prevent 35 percent of Romani girls in Macedonia from finishing primary school, noted Zaklina Durmis, president of Dendo Vas, the Organization for Youth and Children in Skopje. "Research has shown lack of attention from teachers affects girls more than boys—there is no difference between girls and boys in primary school, in fact, girls tend to do better until they encounter pressure to marry early," said Refika Mustafic, executive director of the Roma Education Center in Serbia.

There is a consensus among Roma that the segregation of Romani pupils into inferior schools, whether all-Romani schools in the ghettos or schools for mentally handicapped children is another obstacle preventing all Romani children, including girls from going further in school. The teaching of Romani culture, history and language, and better monitoring of school systems were also identified as ways to help create a less discriminatory learning environment for all students.

Maria Metodieva, an eRider who supports educational desegregation projects through the Roma Information Project in Bulgaria, argued that education is a powerful catalyst for reducing poverty and inequality, as well as for building democratic societies and globally competitive economies. Reflecting on her own experience as an educated Romani woman in a non-traditional occupation, Metodieva expressed the pros and cons of forging new ground in her capacity as a technology consultant. As a female in an unconventional role in a traditional Roma society, opposition comes hand in hand with accomplishments. "The Roma women's movement is taking on technology whether our men like it or not," she said. Metodieva also proposed resolutions for closing the gender gap in education, including access to vocational and technological education for Romani girls.


Economic Empowerment

The economic empowerment panel addressed the gender-specific development challenges faced by Romani communities. Compared with their non-Romani counterparts, Romani women have lower life expectancy rates and educational levels and higher rates of fertility, mortality, unemployment, and poverty. They also suffer from worse health and more extensive social exclusion and gender-based discrimination. All these factors combine to make the economic empowerment of Romani women particularly challenging.

Telling the story of one desperate 17-year old Romani woman from her community in Bulgaria, Silvia Filippova of the European Roma Pakiv Fund said, "Romani women should not have to sell their bodies and dignity to survive." To address the controversial issue of prostitution within a socially conservative culture, Filippova called for better educational opportunities and income-generating programs for Romani women.

"Public funds should be spent to give Roma women entrepreneurs access to capital," said Blanka Kosma of the Hungarian Association for Roma Women in Public Life. Kosma also suggested that employment assistance programs should create jobs that enable Romani women to contribute to their communities, for example, as social workers. One successful model program created by Romani Criss and funded by the Romanian government trained Romani women to work as health mediators to help Romani communities gain access to services from the Romanian healthcare system.

Maria Nowak, president of Association pour le Droit à l'Initiative Économique (ADIE), discussed the challenges involved in balancing economic empowerment with Romani women's traditional roles as wives and mothers. She said, based on her success in developing income-generating programs for Romani women in France, that "supporting income-generating activities with self employment is a good way to promote economic empowerment for Roma women and break the cycle of poverty within the Roma community." She added that successful policies must also be realistic, concluding that "while access to economic empowerment for Roma women is very important, it is also an important challenge to harmonize that with tradition and culture."


Sexual and Reproductive Rights

In addition to discussing the importance of basic healthcare rights for Romani women, the panel on sexual and reproductive rights articulated strategies for the ongoing struggle to combat coerced sterilization, sexual taboos, arranged marriages, and domestic violence.

Maria Vamosine Palmai, who dropped out of school at age 14 to get married, painted a bleak portrait of the current status of most young Romani women. "Romani girls are deprived of the right to decide about their own lives. They are often made to leave school as they start to mature in order to secure their virginity for marriage. They don't follow their dreams. They don't care about their health. There are no options for them."

Palmai, however, has taken bold steps to help others like her. At 23, Palmai, the mother of three, founded ARANJ, one of the first Romani women's organizations established by Romani women living in traditional communities. ARANJ has directly confronted existing discrimination and human rights issues by conducting research and public discussion about sexual taboos and the cult of virginity in Romani communities. "We made [the survey] without high education but with gigantic motivation," writes Palmai in the introduction to ARANJ's publication On Virginity, which was supported by OSI and based on a model project developed by Enisa Eminova and 12 other young Romani women in Macedonia. Palmai said that young Romani women in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia will soon be initiating similar projects supported by OSI's Network Women's Program.

Anna Karamanou, the chairperson of the European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities, noted that the European Union (EU) enlargement process has created special opportunities to influence the situation of Romani communities and Romani women in EU accession countries. She urged Romani women to press the EU to protect Romani women's reproductive and sexual rights and to provide equal opportunities for their communities.


Women's Grassroots Leadership and Political Participation

Few Romani women currently hold leadership positions in the region's political systems or NGO culture. As a result, said Slavica Vasic, president of the Romani women's organization Bibija, "Roma women's human rights are not emphasized." Bibija has attempted to rectify that situation by seeking to involve Romani women in public policy debates and to increase Romani women's political participation in Serbia.

Nicholae Gheorge, of the Roma/Sinti Contact Point for the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) noted that there is not one Romani woman in the region's parliaments, though there are a few Romani women in appointed government positions. One of the forum's policy recommendations calls for the appointment of a national advisor on minority women's issues in Central/Eastern European governments.

Mona Sahlin, Swedish Minister for Democracy and Integration, concluded the panel with a call for Romani women's leadership and solidarity among all women:

Women have been seen as less important for a long time. We have been made invisible. But women from minority groups have carried a double burden in many ways. And women in politics, especially Roma women, are challenging a lot of opinions. It is controversial. To use politics, you must organize, you must unite, you must dare and be very, very strong. To change Roma women's lives you have to change laws, fight discrimination, change prejudice and mainstream Roma issues. Politics is the only way to do all this. It's about organizing, starting networks and helping each other. We must start acting like sisters. If one Roma woman is sterilized, my freedom is threatened. Women in the majority must show more solidarity. Roma rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights.


Closing Session

In the forum's closing session, Elaine Wolfensohn of the World Bank called for policymakers and advocates to examine Romani history to understand how it has produced the current situation for Roma in Europe. Praising the leadership of Romani women, she said development research has shown that "every society works better when there is gender equity."

OSI President Aryeh Neier declared the forum a significant event that will be looked back upon as the start of a process "to propel us forward with Roma women's issues high on the list." Neier added that "Roma women should lead the struggle to promote the rights of Roma women."

Debra Schultz, director of programs for OSI's Network Women's Program, said that Romani women themselves are the most important resource in the ongoing fight for equality. "Roma women will lead the way to deep and lasting transformations in European society by challenging racism, sexism, poverty, and exclusion simultaneously," she said. "They have a clear-eyed view of problems at the local level, where the impact of change must be felt."


Women and the "Decade of Roma"

In addition to their work in the Roma Women's Forum, Romani women activists played a crucial role at the larger "Roma in an Expanding Europe: Challenges for the Future" conference that followed the forum. Partly at their instigation, a number of conference panels addressed policy issues affecting Romani women, such as education, employment, social assistance measures, community development programs, and local services.

To ensure that Romani women's issues are integrated into "The Decade of Roma" Initiative, Nicoletta Bitu presented a summary of the Roma Women's Forum agenda to the prime ministers of Bulgaria, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, and Slovakia, as well as to high-ranking ministers from Croatia, the Czech Republic, and Serbia.

In her presentation, Bitu added the following remarks:

The Roma women's agenda highlights the fact that gender equality is far from being achieved in either majority or Roma communities. There is a strong concern regarding the lack of pertinent solutions addressing the situation of Roma women and children. Roma women activists do not want to create a separate movement of Roma women but rather seek to mainstream Roma women's issues into all levels and structures for both women and Roma.

The participants of the forum…expressed a desire to preserve both Romani language and cultural values, but not at the expense of respecting freedom of choice for each individual, including Romani women.

Bitu's key agenda recommendations based on forum panel discussions are the following:

Economic Empowerment
· Create micro-credit lines and micro-enterprise programs that would provide employment opportunities, help end dependency on the social welfare system, and overall increase the quality of life for Romani women.

Health and Sexuality
· Prompt governments to oppose coercive provisions (such as forced sterilization) and the denial of health services to Romani women.
· Provide funding for community-based educational efforts for parents and men that address the effects of the virginity cult, early marriage, and sexual taboos.

Government and Leadership
· Create national plans for Romani development.
· Mainstream Romani women's issues into national agendas.
· Ensure that Romani women's rights are considered within mechanisms to monitor political criteria for EU accession.
· Promote equal representation of Romani women and men in government.

Education
· Train and employ more Romani women as teachers and assistants.
· Add Romani women's perspectives to textbooks.
· Create community-based literacy programs for Romani women (which tend to improve the literacy levels of entire communities).
· Encourage parents to increase their expectations for their children, especially girls.


About the Roma Women's Forum Organizers

The Roma Women's Initiative
Started in 1999, the Romani Women's Initiative (RWI) is a partnership between Romani women activists and OSI's Network Women's Program (NWP). The RWI promotes the human rights of Romani women by empowering Romani women activists in Central and Eastern Europe, placing special emphasis on the participation and leadership development of young Romani women.

The RWI has linked Romani women activists in Central and Eastern Europe, conducted regional and national Romani women's rights trainings led by Romani women, supported the participation of Romani women in international agenda-setting conferences of the United Nations and the global women's movement, developed a website and directory of Romani women activists, sponsored the women technology consultants of the Roma Information Project, and produced the Roma Women's Forum. The NWP and the European Roma Rights Center will cosponsor a workshop on Romani women's human rights in December 2003.

For more information about the activities of the RWI, please contact:
Azbija Memedova, centar@mt.net.mk or Nikki Persley, npersley@sorosny.org

Network Women's Program
The Network Women's Program (NWP), an initiative of the Open Society Institute, promotes the advancement of women's human rights, gender equality, and empowerment as an integral part of the process of democratization. NWP seeks to raise public awareness of gender issues, influence policymakers, develop gender-sensitive policies, and eradicate violations of women's rights. It works to create effective and sustainable women's movements, promoting exchange and cooperation among women's organizations, locally, nationally, and globally.

OSI and the Soros foundations network implement a range of initiatives to promote open society by shaping government policy and supporting education, media, public health, and human and women's rights, as well as social, legal, and economic reform. The goal is to transform closed societies into open ones and to protect and expand the values of existing open societies.