On 9 July 2024, a Roma coordination group meeting was held in Kyiv/online, where international organizations operating in Ukraine, namely the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UN Women, OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the European Commission, the Council of Europe, provided each other updates on respective activities related to the protection of the rights of Roma in Ukraine.
During the meeting, Oana Taba, on behalf of the Roma and Travellers Team in the Council of Europe gave an overview of the cases related to hatred against the Roma community, linking the issue with the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. Cristi Mihalache, Chief of the Contact Point for Roma and Sinti Issues, OSCE ODIHR reported on the process of finalizing the conference report of the “Mapping the Challenges Faced by Ukrainian Roma in a War Time and Overcoming the Obstacles through Policy, Advocacy and Empowerment”. He also emphasized ODIHR’s continued work with Roma human rights defenders, including by focusing on advocacy training for Roma women.
When it comes to studies related to Roma and data collection, Muhamet Arifi, Regional Project Manager, United Nations Development Programme informed participants that the overall survey on Roma prepared in partnership with the Word Bank is in progress. Questionaries are finalized and a preliminary timeline of the implementation of the survey was provided.
Fatih Kilinc, a Knowledge Management Analyst at UN Women mentioned another research, planned to be conducted in Ukraine with focus on social norms among Roma communities and the impact of social norms on Roma women The research will cover Odesa and Zakarpattia oblast. Ieva Keskine, from the World Bank, underlined that more surveys conducted related to Roma communities in Ukraine will enrich the knowledge and close the lack of information.
The Roma Coordination Meeting is an initiative of the Council of Europe project “Support the reform of the national minority legal framework and the resilience of the national minorities and Roma in Ukraine” implemented under the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine “Resilience, Recovery and Reconstruction” 2023-2026.
