Between 20,000 to 50,000 people without a passport or with an outdated USSR passport lives in Ukraine. A great number of these people are Roma, which beside obtaining a passport, they also face obstacles in accessing even basic documents, such as birth certificate. Lack of personal documents is also a serious barrier to Roma accessing basic constitutional rights such as school enrolment, health care, employment, social services etc.
The Council of Europe supports the Ukrainian authorities in reinforcing the implementation of human rights standards at national level by reviewing legislation, strengthening the existent and developing new institutional capacities, providing expert support, and building a platform for exchanging knowledge and best practices.
In 2019, in the framework of the project "Protection of national minorities, including Roma and minority languages in Ukraine" the Council of Europe, together with the State Migration Service, the Ministry of Justice, the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights and Roma mediators organised 12 monitoring visits to Roma communities in various regions of Ukraine. During the visits, consultations were held with 220 people and 230 Roma were registered for passports. In addition, one seminar and several round-table discussions were conducted to exchange knowledge and best practices on solutions for documenting people.
Example: In Transcarpathia region, a Romani woman who has 5 children, who were born in Ukraine, do not have documents and birth certificates for her children. She tried to obtain the document by herself, but that was not possible because she hadn’t any financial means to pay the penalties. Her illiteracy further aggravated her understanding of the procedure. With the support of the Roma mediator, who worked in close cooperation with the State Migration Service, the woman was able to receive the passport in one year.
During these monitoring visits we were able to identify the main obstacles relating to the lack of identification documents. According to the people from the communities and the Roma mediators, the most difficult for a person without a passport is the complexity of procedures, especially in the case of going to court, and determining the list and sequence of actions that should lead to obtaining a passport. Therefore, many of the Roma mediators assist the Roma population in these complex administrative procedures. The practice of communication with the local authorities showed that they do not always understand the causes and consequences for the community of lack of passports; at the same time the representatives of the local authorities do not always understand how to achieve the goal and how they can facilitate the registration of passport documents by community members.
Experts, with the support of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine and in cooperation with the State Migration Service, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, have developed a Roadmap on practices for documenting Roma in different life situations. The Roadmap contains nineteen the most difficult cases that Roma representatives encountered and gives a clear algorithm of actions to solve the problem. The content of the Roadmap has become the basis for the creation of a Chatbot application to assist persons without passports to identify the type of documents they need to produce and the procedures to follow. The Chatbot and the Roadmap includes the references to new statelessness law. The law will give many people who lack a nationality a chance to work legally, study and access healthcare among other rights and opportunities, and will ultimately provide a pathway to citizenship, once they are recognized as stateless.
Currently, you can download the Chatbot for Viber by QR-code.
In June this year, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) published conclusions on the implementation of two priority recommendations made to Ukraine in 2017. In one of the conclusions ECRI recommends waiving court fees in cases of Roma seeking to prove their identity for the purpose of obtaining personal identification documents. The authorities informed ECRI that the Law on Court Fees 2012 provides for the postponement of payment of court fees, reduction of their amount or exemption from payment. ECRI understands, however, that the legislation is of little use to Roma seeking to prove their identity, since – paradoxically – there is a requirement to prove inability to pay the fees by providing documentary evidence to the court. In this context, ECRI has found no indication of the application of this provision in such cases. It therefore concludes that its recommendation has not been implemented, as all gathered information demonstrates that no changes have occurred in this respect.
The joint efforts of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine and the State Migration Service to develop a chatbot are aimed, inter alia, at assisting Ukraine in implementing ECRI’s recommendations and other international commitments.
The Council of Europe (CoE) continues to support its Member States to implement European human rights standards at national level through revision of legislation, capacity development and exchange of best practices. To contribute to this process, the CoE is implementing a project on ''Protecting national minorities, including Roma and minority languages in Ukraine''. The Project started in March 2018 and it is part of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine 2018-2021.
