The challenges that Roma community mediators experience in their daily work and ways of improving their practices in preventing and combating discrimination and hatred against Roma persons, were addressed during a two-days training for 25 Roma community mediators.
This event marked another step toward a deeper understanding of the stereotypes and persisting antigypsyism in the Moldovan society, as well and the role that the community mediators have for reducing and ending discrimination and inequalities faced by Roma community. In this context, the participants had the possibility to discuss with guest speakers from equality institutions and relevant ministries emerging problems, such as bullying and school segregation, forced sedentarisation, hate speech and crimes motivated by prejudice, as well as situations of unequal treatment in the field of employment, health and social services for Roma persons.
During this training , the legal protection mechanisms based on Council of Europe standards and best practices at European level for minority protection were presented, including the CoE tools and recommendations on Roma and Travellers, in addition to providing practical exercises and guidance to Roma mediators when addressing law enforcement institutions, for example on lodging complaints and supporting the victims of discrimination during that process.
At the end of this training, participants identified further need of co-operation with all relevant institutions (e.g., the Agency for Interethnic Relations, Equality Council, Police, People’s Advocate Office, Ministry of Education and Research, Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, Ministry of Health) to ensure an efficient protection mechanism, to advance reforms for better protection of Roma persons in line with EU standards, as well as to continue awareness-raising initiatives for ensuring equal treatment of vulnerable groups.
This event was organised in co-operation with the Agency for Interethnic Relations, as a common initiative of the following projects: European Union/Council of Europe project “Combating discrimination, hate speech and hate crimes in the Republic of Moldova”, part of the European Union and Council of Europe joint programme “Partnership for Good Governance”, and Council of Europe project “Enhancing diversity and equality in the Republic of Moldova - Phase II.”
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