EUROPEAN ROMA RIGHTS CENTRE : Intorduction Hark ány , 11 July 20 1 1

1. EUROPEAN ROMARIGHTS CENTRE:IntorductionHarkány, 11 July 2011

2. The ERRC: an international human rights law organization • The ERRC’s mission: • to combat discrimination and human rights abuses faced by the Roma community • to ensure equal access to justice, education, health care and public services for Romani individuals • We achieve these goals through: • strategic litigation • research and advocacy • human rights education • media and communications outreach

3. Fundamental Rights Concerns • Violence by state actors and non-state actors: State failure to punish perpetrators and protect Roma • Discrimination in education (particularly segregation) • Segregation in housing and evictions • Restrictions on freedom of movement • Violations of the rights of women and children • Failure of Governments to collect disaggregated data, inhibiting knowledge of rights violations and measures to address them

4. Strategic Litigation Goals of Strategic Litigation: • to empower Roma through affirmation and protection of their legal rights • to reverse patterns of anti-Roma discrimination and human rights abuse • to facilitate the compensation of Romani individuals who have been the victims of discrimination and violence conducted by state and non-state actors • The ERRC achieves these goals by: • providing professional and financial support to local lawyers in domestic proceedings • preparing legal submissions to international tribunals • The ERRC has consultative status with the Council of Europe and the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations

5. Research and Advocacy • Goals of Research and Advocacy: • to conduct investigative research and produce original reports • to advocate for Romani communities and ensure that their human rights concerns are addressed in governmental agendas • Research reports focus on the topics of: • racially-motivated violence against Roma • violations of economic and social rights as a result of anti-Roma discrimination • the effectiveness of Roma-related laws and policies • Advocacy work has recently or is currently being conducted in the areas of : • anti-Roma violence and hate speech • school desegregation • forced evictions • coercive sterilization and Romani women’s rights • implementation of anti-discrimination laws

6. Human Rights Education • Goals of Human Rights Education: • to empower activists in their efforts to advocate for equal treatment of Roma • to provide hands-on learning opportunities and professional training for human rights activists • The ERRC achieves these goals by : • providing internships and developing workshops for Romani activists • providing research fellowships for Romani activists conducting work in gender equality • facilitating legal traineeships for Romani lawyers • creating country–specific training initiatives for legal professionals

7. Media and Communications • Goals of the Media and Communications: • to provide frequent updates on events involving and affecting Roma • to publish analyses on the far-reaching and reoccurring concerns of the Romani community • to provide easy access to educational materials online and through print publications made available in several languages • Materials published by the ERRC include: • human rights reports • press releases • quarterly newsletters • position papers • over 25 book-length reports documenting human rights issues in countries across Europe • the prestigious Roma Rights Journal • The ERRC has worked closely with several media outlets to promote informed, balanced reporting on news stories involving Roma

8. ERRC Success Since its inception in 1996, the ERRC has been successful in working with governmental and non-governmental groups to develop and implement initiatives and policies that have resulted in substantive improvements for the Roma. The legal team has been equally as successful in empowering the Romani community by bringing to justice human rights violators. The ERRC has received numerous awards for its work. • Legal achievements: • won a series of landmark cases before the European Court of Human Rights that established significant jurisprudence regarding discrimination in education and appropriate state responses to racially-motivated violence • secured over 2 million EUR in compensation for Romani victims of human rights abuses • initiated more than 500 court cases in 15 countries • Social and political achievements: • focused public attention and political priorities on the human rights situation of Roma in Europe • ensured that the major concerns of Romani communities were addressed as priority issues by both EU Member States and candidate countries • wrote significant policy documents and reports on behalf of the European Commission and the EU Fundamental Rights Agency

9. Activities of the ERRC in Hungary • Violations of the rights of women and children: Errc’s responses: • Report on child protection system: ‘Dis-Interest of the Child’ • A. S. Case and induvidual case on coersive sterilization • Report on human trafficking: ‘Breaking the silence’ • Discrimination in education : Errc’s responses: • Desegragation case: Hevse County • Filed case European Court of Human Rights • Violence by state actors and non-state actors: State failure to punish perpetrators and protect Roma Errc’s responses: • Attract the attenction the internatinal organisation and internation institutions • Individual cases on police brutality/violance

10. Dis-Interest of the Child: Romani Children in the Hungarian Child Protection System Women and children data: • In 2007 was published an ERRC’s report, entiteled: ‘‘Dis-Interest of the Child’ and the results of it indicates that: • the Romani children are overwhelmingly over-represented in the Hungarian child protection system. This appears mainly to be the result of indirect discrimination against Roma through the application of the provisions of the child protection law and functioning of the system itself, which have a disproportionate impact on Roma • althouhg the Hungarian Child Protection Act bans the removal of children from their families for purely material reasons, Romani children appear to be removed more frequently from their families for material reasons than non-Romani children. • preventative social care and community development programes in Hungary are extremely underdeveloped.

11. the temporary or short-term care of children unofficially becomes long-term care in almost all cases, meaning that a disproportionate number of Romani children in state care are relegated to life in an institutional setting. Because the legal framework on child protection allows children to be placed in temporary and short-term care on the basis of an administrative decision, many Romani children and parents are de facto long-term separated without any court involvement (which is required for the official long-term placement of children in professional care in Hungary.

12. Previous week was presented the findings of a multi-country study (Romani children in State care institutions in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Romania and Slovakia) which reveals that this data has not changed: • In Hungary, Romani children were found to represent 65% of the children in State care institutions visited. • The underlying reason for this grim statistics is the interplay of structural poverty and discrimination. Poverty and material conditions, school absenteeism, single parenthood (especially single motherhood) and unwanted pregnancies and migration were all factors. Some Romani families perceived discrimination against them on the part of child protection actors, which is borne out by other evidence of discriminatory attitudes and prejudice amongst child protection actors. For many institutionalised Romani children, reintegration into the family setting is unlikely and their ethnicity negatively affects their chances of adoption, meaning that many Romani children spend their entire childhood in State institutions.

13. Breaking the Silence: Trafficking in Romani Communities • The research conducted by the ERRC and PiN in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary,Romania and Slovakia indicates that trafficking in persons affects Roma disproportionately. • Although relevant official data does not exist, the estimates provided for the perceived representation of Roma among trafficked persons are several times higher than the proportion of Roma in the general population. This study in 2010 indicated that Roma represent at least 40% in Hungary. • Research confirmed that Roma are trafficked for various purposes, including sexual exploitation, labour exploitation, domestic servitude, organ trafficking, illegal adoption and begging. • Romani women and children were the most represented regardless of the purpose of trafficking. • The research reveals that Roma are highly vulnerable to trafficking due to structural forms of ethnic and gender discrimination, poverty and social exclusion which result in low educational achievement, high levels of unemployment, usury, growing up in state care, domestic violence affecting predominantly women and children and substance abuse. Furthermore, many of the vulnerability factors such as domestic violence, high school dropout rates, homelessness or being in state care affect children and youth exclusively or disproportionately.

14. Analysis of anti-trafficking legal frameworks in Hungary indicates that the state donot fully comply with international legal standards. • Trafficking is also often prosecuted underrelated, lesser crimes in the countries studied, which negatively affects the types of protectionavailable to trafficked persons and also skews available statistical information in thefield of trafficking. • Governments should establish National Referral Mechanisms (NRM)to foster effective inter-agency cooperation and unified standards of care. • Although Hungary adopted a National Strategy Against Trafficking in Human Beings (2008– 2012), it has yet to adopt a national action plan for implementing this strategy. This constitutes a significant obstacle to implementing the national strategy as specific measures and deadlines have not been established and responsibilities have not been assigned. • Hungary’sNational Strategy does not refer to Roma as an at-risk group for trafficking despite the widespread perception held by relevant experts that Roma are overrepresented among trafficked persons in the country • The participationof NGOs in these bodies is crucial. However, research found that the involvement ofRoma is limited where these forums exist.

15. Lack of disaggregated data based onethnicity • Data disaggregated by ethnicity is not gathered with respectto trafficked persons or the children in the child protecton system in Hungary (data protection) • EU law on data protection allows for the collection of ethnic data provided that certainsafeguardsare in place to protect this form of special personal data from misuse. The wilfulinterpretation of national data protection laws as a blanket prohibition of the collection ofdata based on ethnicity is one of the key obstacles to developing tailoredpolicies to effectively combat trafficking in Romani communities. • The lack of disaggregated data based on ethnicity has also been criticised by UnitedNations treaty monitoring bodies. Reports available: Dis-Interest of the Child: Romani Children in the Hungarian Child Protection System: http://www.errc.org/cikk.php?cikk=2960 Breaking the Silence: Trafficking in Romani Communities: http://www.errc.org/cikk.php?cikk=3846

16. Cases related to violation of women and childen rights Coersive sterilisation: A. S. v Hungary • United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Comitte) in August 2006found that the Hungarian government to be in violation of the Convention in a case of the coercive sterilisation of a Romani woman • (available at: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/protocol/decisions-views/Decision%204-2004%20-%20English.pdf) • Ms. A.S. was coercively sterilised by doctors at the Fehérgyarmat hospital in January 2001. During preparation for her caesarian section operation to remove a dead foetus, Ms A.S. was asked to sign forms giving her consent to this operation as well as her sterilisation. However the doctors did not explain the intervention, its nature, possible risks, or what the consequences of being sterilised would be. Before leaving the hospital Ms A.S. asked the doctor for information on her state of health and when she could try to have another baby. It was only then that she learned the meaning of the word “sterilisation.

17. Following unsuccessful claims in Hungarian courts the ERRC and NEKI filed a complaint before the CEDAW Committee. • The CEDAW Committee established that in the coerced sterilisation of Ms A.S. without her full and informed consent by medical staff at a Hungarian public hospital, there had been violations of a number of rights guaranteed by the CEDAW Convention, in particular, Article 10(h), Article 12, and Article 16(1)(e). • The CEDAW Committee stated that Hungary violated Article 10(h) of CEDAW by failing to provide information and advice on family planning, and the CEDAW Committee recalled its general recommendation No. 21 on equality in marriage and family relations. The CEDAW Committee noted that apart from the testimony of Ms. A.S., the judgment of the appellate court also confirmed, that Ms A.S. had not been provided with detailed information about the sterilisation, including the risks involved and the consequences of the surgery, alternative procedures or contraceptive methods. • The CEDAW Committee stipulated that Ms A.S. had the right under Article 10(h) of CEDAW to specific information on sterilisation and alternative procedures for family on some time bar or other procedural technicality, we should probably say this.

18. The CEDAW Committee also found Hungary in violation of Article 12 of CEDAW by performing the sterilisation surgery without obtaining Ms A.S.’s informed consent. The CEDAW Committee established a violation of article 16(1)(e) of CEDAW, and recalled its general recommendation No. 19. The decision of the CEDAW Committee further stated that the government should review domestic legislation on the principle of informed consent in cases of sterilisation and ensure its conformity with international human rights and medical standards. It should also repeal provisions allowing physicians “to deliver the sterilisation without the information procedure generally specified when it seems to be appropriate in given circumstances.” In July 2009, the Hungarian government provided HUF 5,200,000 financial compensation to Ms A.S. The Hungarian Public Health Act was amended with regards to informed consent in connection with sterilisation: special information shall be given even if the sterilisation is preceded for medical indication In 2011, peding case on coercive sterilisation before County Court of Miskolc

19. Discrimination in education General situation: • The ERRC has brought cases to Eurpean Court of Human Rights (e.g.: Case of D.H. and Others v. the Czech Republic) and the Court has affirmed that schoolsegregation of Romani children (in schools for children with disabilities and in separate schools or classes in mainstream schools) constitutes illegal discrimination in judgments against the Czech Republic (2007), Greece (2008) and Croatia (2010). Despite these rulings, educational segregation of Romani children is systemic in many European countries: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia are noteworthy, with credible reports of segregation in Macedonia, Northern Ireland (UK), Portugal and Spain. Romani children complete school at much lower rates than their non-Romani peers. Pending educational case in Heves County: • actio popularis case concerend violation of  Roma students personal rights. • Joint case with Chance for Children Foundation

20. Facts: • Regarding the wide target group of definition of the special educational Need (SEN) or/and with misdiagnosis easy to placed Roma children in special classes or schools. Roma children being approximately 15 times more likely than other children to be placed in special school. • In 1993, official school statistics showed that 42% of special school students were of Romani origin. • Gábor Havas in his research (Romani children in the education) concluded that the misdiagnosis of Romani children as mentally disabled is a tool to segregate Romani children from non-Romani children. • In Heves County the number of students with special educational needs (SEN) is the second highest in the country. The investigation of the CFCF in Heves County revealed that while the non-Roma students with SEN are mostly attending mainstream school and only those that would, if measured on the recognised international scale, be in the middle range of the Children's Global Assessment Scale attend special schools, The majority of Roma students with SEN that are educated in special schools.

21. Typically such students have behavioural or studying problems; or suffer from dyscalculia,dyslexia, dysgraphia etc. • The rehabilitation committee of experts decides whether the child/student struggles with adaptive, learning or behavioral difficulties or has special educational needs. As a result, stating whether someone has special education needs is results directly from the exclusive competence of the national or regional expert committees on the basis of testing. • These tests are culturally biased and do not take the social and cultural background of Romani and disadvantaged children into account. Therefore a multiply disadvantaged background results in high number of Romani children being diagnosed as mildly mentally retarded children/students. • Local level municipalities must provide mainstream education for students with SEN, if they can be educated and taught alongside other children. County Council must maintain special schools for student with SEN (kindergarten, school and hall of residence service for those students with SEN who may not be educated alongside other students) and maintain the regional expert committees.

22. As a formal, standard educational protocol did not exist before 2004 there were no statutory requirements on how to examine, monitor children • I many cases the assessors have not ensured that the parents be present at the diagnosis. An additionally frequently occurring problem is that the expert committee does not notify the parents about the possibilities of legal remedy, even though this is a compulsory part of providing expert opinion. • In its role as a maintainer, the Heves County Council had responsibility forthe inspection of the special schools and expert committees, but it has failed to enforce effective controls. This omission may as a result establish the liability of the County Council. • In 2011, ERRC filed appliction to the European Court of Human Rights, presents two students who were misdiagnosed as SEN students. Hungarian educational cases: http://www.cfcf.hu/

23. Violence by state actors and non-state actors: State failure to punish perpetrators and protect Roma • In Hungary – at least 48 violent attacks involving 9 fatalities and 14 cases involving Molotov cocktails or hand grenades; • Spring 2011, increasing activity of extremist political parties and politicians: Gyöngyöspata, Hejőszalonta and Hajdúhadház; • Police brutality: individual cases • Responses: • Monitoring and reporting on crimes of violence against Roma, hate speech by public officials against Roma and the state response to such acts; • In-depth reports on selected crimes of violence and the law enforcement response; • Attraction of internetional organistations attention and urging the state for action with other NGOs (e.g.: TASZ, Amnesty International, CFCF) • Selective litigation of violence cases domestically (representing victims in civil damages cases and in criminal proceedings against perpetrators)

24. Thank you for your attention! European Roma Rights Centre www.errc.org Email: office@errc.org; edina.tordai@errc.org Phone: (36-1) 343-2200 Fax: (36-1) 343-2201 Address: Naphegy tér 8, Hungary – 1016 Budapest