An article highlighting the fact that Roma refugees are being excluded by Ukrainian refugees.
Many Roma in the Ukraine do not have any official documents. This prevents them from receiving social help, complicates their situation as IDPs, and often prevents them from finding official work. An action was started in Lviv, to help Roma obtain their papers.
Better late than never …
Out of the many refugees out of the Ukraine, ca. 100’000 are Roma. One of the issues they face is that many of them are stateless, they have no official papers, often lacking even a birth certificate that would prove their citizenship.
The fate of refugees in Western Europe is much better than in Eastern European countries bordering the Ukraine. There, they are definitively discriminated against.
An estimated 400,000 lived in Ukraine before the Russian invasion. A quarter fled the war-torn country. Many went to Poland. Władysław Kwiatkowski, president of the Roma Association in Poland, stated in an interview that “Not everyone in Poland realizes that many Roma fight in the ranks of the Ukrainian army. They defend their country. They are citizens of Ukraine, just like the rest”.
Dr. Małgorzata Kołaczek from the Foundation for Dialogue – one of the authors of the report “Human rights, and discrimination – the situation of Roma refugees from Ukraine in Poland. Report on research and intervention activities” Said:
“The Roma, like other Ukrainians, lose their life possessions, husbands and fathers at the front, and yet they are treated differently – as if their pain and suffering were less. As it happens in a situation of uncertainty and danger, the lowest human instincts are activated, which are directed towards those whom one “always” dislikes “.
More than forty people from the Roma community, among them refugees from Ukraine participate here in a “protected space” in a symposium on the management of traumas and their healing, for strengthening and empowering oneself.
Roxanna-Lorainne Witt, co-founder of the association Save Space and co-organizer of the symposium, explains in an interview for DW: “Who strengthens those people, who are strong for all of us? How are role models supported, so that strengthen themselves, while they themselves often have to work without stable perspectives and structures? Normal experiences – such as seeing the sea once in a lifetime – are often completely undervalued.”
The Ukrainian state guarantees its citizens equal access to legal aid and justice. The possibility of receiving services in the system of free legal aid does not depend on social status, race, ethnicity or other characteristics. At the same time, the Roma national minority, which is quite significant in Ukraine, is also one of the most socially vulnerable, and therefore requires the special attention of human rights defenders.
In order to ensure unimpeded access of Roma to free legal aid, specialists of the BPD system organize out-of-court consultation points in settlements where Roma live, explain the rights of representatives of national minorities during legal education events, prepare and distribute information and explanatory materials about the rights of national minorities.
“The lawyers of the BPD system in Sumy Oblast are constantly approached by representatives of the Roma nationality. In the regional centre, we even organized a consultation centre on the basis of one of the schools, where part of the children belong to the Roma community. Yes, at the specified time, everyone who wants to can consult with a specialist,” says the director of the Sumy local centre for the provision of BVPD Valentyna Troshechko.
A Step in the right direction …
A small child died in a fire in an asylum seeker centre in the Thuringian town of Apolda. The child is from a Roma family from the Ukraine.
It is not yet known whether this was arson or an accidental fire. Romani Rose, the chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma is asking for a prompt investigation.
Roma from Ukraine fled to Hungary because of the war, but not because of poverty. Rozina is 38 years old Romni and is one of several thousand refugees from Ukraine who fled to Hungary after the Russian invasion in February 2022.
She sits at a table and practices writing her name at a school in the eighth district of the Hungarian capital. She has freckles on her face, a bright smile, and struggles with the letter “k” when writing the surname Farkaš. The classes are run by Taleta, a non-governmental organization founded by two Hungarian women, Silvija Moldovan (Szilvia) and Agnes Pletser, immediately after the war began, with the aim of helping to educate young Roma refugees from the western Ukrainian Transcarpathian region.
Residents of the small city of Krasnystaw, Southeast of Lublin and close to the Ukrainian border, are complaining about Roma refugees who, according to them, are making the city unsafe. Upon closer reading, this boils down to petty theft of food, and small incidents.
The thefts indicate that they probably do not have enough money to survive otherwise, as Poland does not really provide much help to refugees.
The Roma Women’s Foundation “Chirikli” initiated a discussion of the Action Plan for the Implementation of the Strategy for Facilitating the Realization of the Rights and Opportunities of Persons Belonging to the Roma National Minority in Ukrainian Society for 2024-2025.
The discussion took place online on May 12, 2023. It was attended by Roma mediators (Valentyna Zolotarenko, Zhuzhuna Duduchava, Maksym Jum, Bublyk Marina, Rada Kalandia) and representatives of 15 Roma organizations from Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Zakarpattia, Chernihiv, Kyiv, Donetsk, Kirovohrad regions (Yulian Kondur, Vasyl Bilous, Vira Drangoy, Eleonora Kulchar, Myroslav Horvat, Kostyantyn Musenko, Oleksiy Padchenko, Mykhailo Bilyavskyi), as well as the representative of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine Zemfira Kondur.
https://www.facebook.com/Chiricli/photos/a.1337218203040379/6029698317125654/
An article and video on Roma refugees from the Ukraine. According to the article, there could be as many as 100’000 of them. This number is probably too high an estimate. The article focuses on Roma from Transcarpathian Ukraine in the Czech Republic, a problematic issue.
On May 6th, 2023, Ivan Korniyovych Bilashchenko passed away at the age of 97. He was born in the village of Dmytrivka, Zolotoni district, Cherkasy region.
He was a lieutenant colonel and a veteran of the Second World War. He survived the famine when he was 7. When the Second World War began, he was 14 years old, and was sent to a concentration camp. He escaped, he was caught again and sent to forced labour – to build a railway in the Zolotonsky District.
In 1943, when he was already 17 years old, Zolotonishchyna was liberated by the Red Army, and Ivan Korniyovich joined it. He was sent to the front in Vitebsk, where he began his military service, and finished the War in the Baltics States as a commander of a platoon.
May he rest in peace!
Right after the congress of the International Catholic Committee for Roma in Prague on April 24, Fr. Stanisław Opocki – the national Roma chaplain and a member of the Polish Episcopate Commission for Migrants – went to Lviv to support the emerging Roma pastoral care there. Using Polish experience in this area, he assured that he would support the creation of similar structures and work on the educational needs of the Roma in Ukraine.
Apparently, it is never too late for the church.
At least 35% of young Ukrainian men and women polled by sociologists have prejudices against Roma, and another 28% towards LGBT fellow citizens. These comes out of a study “The impact of war on youth in Ukraine”, which was conducted by the Cedos analytical centre and the Info Sapiens research agency.
Well, even though these number are high, they are lower than a while back.
An editorial on the discrimination faced by Roma refugees form the Ukraine in Western Europe.
While some of the statements on the Roma situation in Ukraine are not fully correct, the fact is that many Roma faced discrimination while fleeing.
According to this article in the Bulgarian press, about half of the Roma in the Ukraine are currently refugees and about a quarter of them have a relative fighting on the front. This statement was made by Ned’s Korunovska, of the European Institute for Art and Culture.
These numbers seem somewhat stretched. We doubt that many of the Roma from Transcarpathian Ukraine and Bessarabia fled. Some did, we can testify to this. This will need to be followed up.
A new exhibition about Romas in Transcarpathian Ukraine opened up in the Uzhhorod castle.
A round table was held in Ukraine’s Commissioner’s Secretariat on the occasion of the International Roma Day. The discussion was attended by the management and representatives of the Office of the Ombudsman, Ukrainian state institutions, international and public organizations.
During the introductory speech, Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets noted that the issue of the status of national communities is one of the conditions for Ukraine’s accession to the EU, therefore this issue is extremely important for Ukraine as a whole and for the work of the Ombudsman’s Office. In particular, the protection of the rights of the Roma minority, which is one of the most vulnerable national communities.
Bishop of Kielce Jan Piotrowski in the company of the Latin Metropolitan of Lviv, Archbishop Mieczysław Mokrzycki visited the parish of St. John Paul II in Lviv and the nearly hundred refugees who live there.
Despite the language barrier, Bishop Piotrowski also talked with Roma children studying in the parish school “Alav” (meaning “word”) organized for them, which, together with the parish priest, Fr. Grzegorz Draus, they sang their own original parish anthem and in Polish “Zielony Mosteczek”. It was a testimony to the success of students who speak Russian and Ukrainian, as well as Hungarian or Romani, on a daily basis.
Roma families in Kryvyi Rih (Ukraine) were visited by Juvenile Inspectors, Specialists of the Children’s Service of the Executive Committee of Dovhyntsivka District Council in the city, and teachers of Kryvorizka Gymnasium No. 84 to “assess their living conditions and education status.
According to the article, “preventive” discussions were held with the parents regarding “responsible parenting” and the need for children to get an education. It furthers with “The emphasis is on preventing the use of children for begging and involving them in illegal activities.”
This says a lot about what people think of Roma there.
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