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Resolution 2153 (2017)
Promoting the inclusion of Roma and Travellers
1. There are estimated to be around
11 million Roma and Travellers living in Europe today. On average, they
are disproportionately poor. Substandard living conditions and inadequate
access to health care, low incomes, high unemployment and discrimination
in access to education are the daily reality for many Roma and Travellers.
Prejudice, hate speech and lack of trust between these groups, the
population at large and the public authorities aggravate this situation
and make it harder to overcome.
2. Nobody’s life chances should be determined by their ethnic
origin. States are increasingly recognising that integrating Roma
and Travellers is in everyone’s interests, and are adopting strategies
to this effect. Moreover, major initiatives to promote the inclusion
of Roma and Travellers have been taken by the Council of Europe,
the European Union and other regional bodies in recent years. In
this context, the Parliamentary Assembly welcomes the creation of
a European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture to promote understanding about
the rich and varied culture and history of Roma and Travellers and
to break the cycle of prejudice, ignorance, anti-Gypsyism and discrimination.
3. Access to employment is a crucial factor in social inclusion.
Yet Roma and Travellers face much higher unemployment rates than
the rest of the population. They tend to be in more precarious employment,
to have lower wages and to be over-represented in the informal sector.
Barriers to employment for Roma and Travellers include lower education
outcomes and skills, direct and indirect discrimination in the labour
market and persistent stereotypes of Roma and Travellers as passive
recipients of assistance rather than as having an active role in
their own destiny. The Assembly is convinced, however, that these
barriers can be overcome and that social exclusion is not the inevitable
fate of Roma and Travellers.
4. In the light of the above, the Assembly calls on Council of
Europe member States to:
4.1. with
regard to improving the education outcomes and skills of Roma and
Travellers, implement the recommendations contained in Resolution 1927 (2013) on
ending discrimination against Roma children, and ensure in particular
that:
4.1.1. all Roma and Traveller children have genuine
access to quality pre-school education;
4.1.2. school segregation is eliminated and an inclusive environment
is created for these children in the education system;
4.1.3. bullying and discrimination in the education system are
not tolerated;
4.1.4. programmes designed to improve education outcomes of Roma
and Traveller children include measures to work together with children
to prevent absenteeism and school drop-out, in particular for girls;
4.1.5. such programmes engage the parents of the children concerned;
this is especially important where parents have low levels of educational
attainment themselves and/or little faith in an education system
that previously failed them;
4.1.6. unskilled and semi-skilled Roma and Traveller workers
have access to return-to-education, retraining and vocational education
programmes, and that individuals who have not completed their compulsory
schooling are not excluded from such programmes but instead given additional
support in order to make these programmes accessible to them;
4.2. with regard to tackling discrimination against Roma and
Travellers in the field of employment:
4.2.1. ensure that
effective anti-discrimination laws are in place, providing for accessible complaints
procedures and simplified means of demonstrating discrimination
(such as testing and a shared burden of proof), combined with dissuasive
sanctions against employers who are found to have acted in a discriminatory
manner;
4.2.2. deliver anti-discrimination training to legal professionals
in all fields and conduct awareness-raising campaigns to ensure
that employers are aware of their duties as regards non-discrimination;
4.2.3. implement capacity-building measures in order to ensure
that Roma and Travellers have effective access to existing remedies;
4.3. with regard to actively promoting equal access of Roma
and Travellers to employment:
4.3.1. place both public and
private employers under a legal duty to monitor and report on the diversity
of their workforce, encourage applications from under-represented
groups, and ensure that their training and promotion practices also
promote inclusion;
4.3.2. include equality requirements in public procurement processes;
4.3.3. develop and implement programmes to increase the immediate
and long-term employability of Roma and Travellers through personalised
support and accompaniment, tailored to the individual and context;
work together with employers in order to match labour supply with employers’
needs;
4.3.4. ensure that any active labour market policies implemented
go beyond mere short-term reinsertion in working structures and
provide an opportunity to receive additional training and/or qualifications
that will promote integration in the primary labour market; jobs
provided through such schemes must also be attributed fairly and
remunerated sufficiently to help break the poverty cycle;
4.3.5. when putting in place measures to promote self-employment
and entrepreneurship, ensure that adequate training in financial
and business skills is made available to Roma and Traveller participants
and provide support throughout the process of setting up or formalising
a business.
5. In addition, the Assembly calls on member States to:
5.1. incorporate measures to fight
anti-Gypsyism and combat prejudice and stereotypes as an integral part
of all efforts to promote the inclusion of Roma and Travellers,
and promote a positive sense of Roma and Traveller identity as well
as Roma and Traveller role models with whom younger generations
can identify;
5.2. directly involve Roma and Traveller representatives at
all stages of the design, implementation and evaluation of policies,
strategies and programmes intended to promote their inclusion;
5.3. ensure that funding periods for such programmes allow
for medium- to long-term planning, and avoid making such programmes
reliant on funding that needs to be constantly renewed on a short-term basis;
5.4. encourage local authorities and give them financial and
substantive support to play an active role in promoting the inclusion
of Roma and Travellers, both by implementing programmes in this
field and by engaging with members of local Roma and Traveller communities
to build trust and foster good relations between them and the broader
community; to this end, an appropriate housing policy also needs
to be in place;
5.5. engage, in conformity with data protection requirements,
in collecting the necessary data to enable programmes to promote
the inclusion of Roma and Travellers to be appropriately designed
and their impact to be effectively monitored;
5.6. promote an increase in the knowledge of Roma and Traveller
culture and history, and work actively for recognition of their
identity in order to improve intercultural coexistence;
5.7. contribute to the visibility and recognition of women
and girls in Roma and Traveller communities as central to the development
of their communities.
6. Finally, the Assembly invites national parliaments to mobilise
against anti-Gypsyism and all forms of racism and intolerance, in
particular through participating in networks such as the No Hate
Parliamentary Alliance.