MINELRES: Roma housing crisis in six countries of Europe

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Original sender: Roma Network <romale@zahav.net.il>


Roma housing crisis: Advocacy groups call on European Committee of
Social Rights to take action on human rights violations

December 4, 2003

The European Committee of Social Rights has been alerted to the housing
crisis faced by the Roma people in six countries and called upon to help
combat the situation. The European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) and the
Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) made joint submissions to
the committee this week, aimed at ensuring that Roma are protected from
housing rights violations in Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania
and Turkey.

Many European countries have failed to adopt laws or take concerted
action to combat discrimination and racial segregation in the field of
housing and in recent years have also weakened provisions protecting the
rights of tenants. �These trends and an outbreak of anti-Romani
sentiment in Europe has severely impacted the Roma peoples� access to
adequate housing�, said Dimitrina Petrova, Executive Director of the
ERRC. 

Forced evictions of Roma are reported with disturbing frequency. �In
many cases, Roma were simply evicted without notice or their homes were
demolished and rarely were the victims provided with an adequate
alternative place to stay�, said Scott Le! ckie, Executive Director of
COHRE. In Bulgaria for example, 115 Romani residents were forcibly
evicted, their homes destroyed by municipal authorities and the evictees
were reportedly relocated to a single room metal barrack lacking both
electricity and running water. 

The submissions by ERRC and COHRE highlight issues such as the
inadequate legal and anti-discrimination regimes, explicitly
discriminatory rules on housing based on racial and ethnic segregation,
forced evictions of Roma and their inability to access social housing
and discrimination of them in related social protection fields. 

ERRC and COHRE have made a number of recommendations to the European
Committee of Social Rights aimed at protecting the housing rights of
Roma, based on fieldwork an! d research conducted with partners in
recent years. �Since many Roma in the these countries live without a
basic water supply, sanitation and electricity, urgent steps are needed
by governments to rectify these ongoing housing rights violations,� said
Claude Cahn, Programmes Director of the ERRC.

The submissions come at a time when the European Committee of Social
Rights is reviewing the compliance of signatories with the right of the
family to social, legal and economic protection under Article 16 of the
European Social Charter and revised European Social Charter.

The full texts of the submissions are available at:
http://www.errc.org/news.shtml 

Contact details: 

ERRC: Dimitrina Petrova, Executive Director, 

Mobile: ++ 36 20 977 63 81

Claude Cahn, ++ 36 20 98 36 445

Tara Bedard, ++ 361 41 32 200

COHRE: Scott Leckie, Executive Director, 

COHRE: Mobile: + 41 79 242 8033