The NGO Roma National Center from the Republic of Moldova is implementing until April 2022 a project intending to change the negative attitude towards Roma and other ethnic minority groups in Moldova, as well as to raise awareness of society about the discriminatory practices that lead to social and economic degradation of the country. The organisation implementing the project also aims to increase access to justice for the respective groups and equal rights among the society. This project is carried out with the support of the European Union/Council of Europe joint programme Partnership for Good Governance, and its regional project “Strengthening access to justice for victims of discrimination, hate speech and hate crimes in the Eastern Partnership.

The Roma National Center will:

1. Improve access to justice for Roma/ethno-minority victims of discrimination, hate speech and hate crimes through free-legal assistance, consultancy and litigation as well as monitoring of cases on discrimination patterns, hate speech and hate crimes that exists in Moldova for Roma and other ethnic minorities;
2. Build necessary skills and raising awareness of the Roma community mediators, Roma leaders, other ethnic minorities about international and local standards on human rights as well on how to submit complaints to the Equality Council in order to address the discrimination, hate speech and hate crimes;
3. Raise awareness of the society by elaborating a guideline on how to combat discrimination, hate speech and hate crimes.

Roma remains the most widespread discriminated group affected by the negative societal prejudice. The inequalities affect their active role in public life, employment, as well as their contribution to developing democratic institutions, rule of law, combating corruption, etc.  The activities in the framework of this project aim at addressing issues of discrimination, hate speech and hate crimes that exist towards Roma and other minority groups considered also to be a vulnerable group in the Moldavian society.

This project is one of the six civil society supported by the European Union/Council of Europe regional anti-discrimination project, in Armenia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine aimed at increasing access to justice for groups that experience discrimination, hate speech and hate crime.

This activity is implemented in the framework of the regional project “Strengthening access to justice for victims of discrimination, hate crime and hate speech in the Eastern Partnership”, financed by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe in their Partnership for Good Governance phase II.