Human Rights Comment
Learning from the pandemic to better fulfil the right to health
The COVID-19 pandemic has concentrated minds about the resilience of our health care systems and it is challenging member states’ health policies and their effectiveness. In addition, doctors, medical staff and health care staff are under unprecedented pressure. Do we have sufficient medical...
Human Rights Comment
European states must demonstrate resolve for lasting and concrete change for Roma people
On 8 April, we will celebrate International Roma Day. This is a day to celebrate Roma culture and Roma contributions to European societies, and the cultural diversity of Europe. The 8th of April, which commemorates the first World Romani Congress held in London in April 1971, should also be a...
Human Rights Comment
Travellers – Time to counter deep-rooted hostility
In October 2015, 10 persons died in a fire which broke in a Travellers’ site near Dublin. Following this tragic event, neighbours prevented the authorities from providing alternative accommodation to the surviving members of the group on a nearby site by blocking roads leading to the new site....
Human Rights Comment
Time to cure amnesia about the history of Roma in Europe
In a few days, we will commemorate the liquidation 71 years ago of the so-called “Gypsy family camp” at Auschwitz-Birkenau. On 2 August 1944, 2 897 persons were taken to the gas chambers and exterminated. Only a few months earlier, on 16 May 1944, the detainees of the “Gypsy camp” had refused to...
Human Rights Comment
Time to debunk myths and prejudices about Roma migrants in Europe
Political and media debates on Roma migration have become recurrent in several European countries. Since the eastward expansion of the European Union in 2004 and 2007, and the lifting of employment restrictions regarding Romanian and Bulgarian citizens in a number of EU member states in 2014,...
Human Rights Comment
Inclusive education vital for social cohesion in diverse societies
Public debates on the need to ensure more inclusive education for children and young adults who face social exclusion in diverse societies have recently rekindled in Europe. Evidence shows that in many European states the dropout rate of children coming from migrant families or minority groups,...
Human Rights Comment
Governments should act in the best interest of stateless children
Citizenship is the “right to have rights”. Without citizenship, one lacks not only political rights, but often social and economic rights as well. On a symbolic level, citizenship implies being a full member of a national community, and even further, of humanity. Hundreds of thousands of persons...
Human Rights Comment
Stop chasing Roma. Start including them.
Evictions of Roma are on the rise in Europe In recent years, the situation of Roma has been largely debated in Europe. However, this attention for the situation of the most discriminated minority in Europe has not been matched by much concrete action by governments. European countries continue...
Human Rights Comment
States must take resolute measures to end school segregation of Roma
Roma children are experiencing segregated and substandard education in the school systems in the majority of the 47 Council of Europe member states. The consequences are devastating. It makes it very hard for these children to escape poverty and marginalisation later on in life. Non-integration...
Human Rights Comment
The right to leave one’s country should be applied without discrimination
Strong measures have been taken by the Macedonian authorities to prevent citizens from travelling to EU countries - and seeking asylum there. The numbers doing so have gone up considerably since the EU agreed that people in Balkan countries would no longer require visas to enter EU territory....
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