A spate of violent attacks on Roma community in Ukraine this year by far-right groups has left two people dead, several injured, and dozens displaced from their destroyed camps.
But ultra nationalists aren’t the biggest threat to the Roma – one of the largest ethnic minorities in Ukraine, yet, invisible and excluded from political and social life.
According to new research published on Sept. 24, pervasive intolerance of Roma people among Ukrainians, paired with bureaucracy, leave many Roma undocumented and therefore stripped of basic access to education and healthcare. That leads to a cycle of poverty and discrimination continuing from generation to generation.
Bureaucracy
A 39-year-old Roma woman, Marta, was born in a village in Odesa region. Marta’s parents had documents and officially registered their marriage. They managed to get passports for their elder children, but not for Marta and her younger brother, who only had birth certificates. Later their birth certificates were stolen. Without any identifying documents, Marta wasn’t able to register her marriage nor get birth certificates for her two sons, who are now 16 and 21 years old.
She and her sons make a living by begging on the streets of Odesa. They have been arrested by police many times because being undocumented is an administrative offence in Ukraine.
Marta once applied to the village council for new documents, but the officials asked her to bring her mother for the application process. Since her mother barely could walk, she gave up.
This is one of many stories of undocumented Roma people in Ukraine recorded by an Odesa-based non-governmental organization called Desyate Kvitnya, which carried out a study supported by the European Roma Rights Centre in Budapest.
According to the study released on Sept. 24, many Roma people are undocumented and don’t have proof of their Ukrainian nationality. And being stateless means they legally don’t exist in Ukraine and aren’t eligible for state services and welfare.
More importantly, Ukrainian legislation overlooks undocumented persons and creates bureaucratic hurdles that are unsurmountable for Roma people without education and a stable income, the study found.
For instance, the law requires a birth certificate or proof of legal residency in Ukraine for a person to get Ukrainian citizenship or permanent residency.
While all babies born in Ukraine whose parents have either Ukrainian citizenship or permanent residency are eligible for Ukrainian birth certificates, undocumented parents can’t register the birth of their child. Hence statelessness is inherited from generation to generation. Subsequently, those children can’t attend public schools, and without education they have little chance of escaping poverty.
In addition, undocumented Roma people can’t get legal aid from the state. And without legal help they can’t navigate a convoluted legal process. They often can’t afford to pay state fees and fines, the report read.
Nobody knows how many Roma people live in Ukraine, and how many of them are undocumented. According to the 2001 census, 47,600 persons self-identified as Roma. However, civil organizations say the real number ranges from 120,000 up to 400,000 people. They tend to live in self-organized settlements called tabors (camps) mainly in Zakarpattya and Odessa regions, as well as in some central parts of the country such as Kyiv, Cherkasy, and Poltava regions.
The Ukrainian Ombudsman office reckons that 10 to 20 percent of the Roma people in the country are undocumented, although they have the right to Ukrainian nationality.
“Stateless people are deprived of access to basic services such as education, healthcare, and legal protection. Hence having identification documents is one of the factors that would promote the Roma’s integration into society, improve their access to the labor market, and decrease poverty,” Yulia Masenko, a lawyer at Desyate Kvitnya, told the Kyiv Post.
“This will also dispel myths that Roma people are lazy and uneducated and don’t want to work.”
Institutional racism
Negative stereotypes and institutional racism are more reasons why many Roma people remain excluded from Ukrainian society.
Aksana Filipishina, a representative of Ukraine’s Ombudsman office, told the researchers from Desyate Kvitnya that the highest level of intolerance in Ukraine is for Roma people, followed by the LGBT community.
She said discriminatory prejudices are high even among the most educated Ukrainians, as well as among judges, law enforcers, and state officials whose decisions have direct effect when it comes to undocumented Roma people. However, as the study found, the State Migration Service often refuses to deal with the Roma and sends them to the courts.
“In relation to the Roma, the situation is only worsened by stereotypes and the absence of respect for the Roma nationality. In particular, when an uneducated Roma comes to the state authorities, this person could immediately be asked to leave,” said Mykola Burlutskiy, leader of the Kharkiv-based non-governmental organization Chachimo, which works with the Roma.
“There were cases when our staff members accompanied persons who had earlier been asked to leave. When the Roma come accompanied, the tone is changed, the rhetoric and the attitude is different,” he said, cited in the report.
