On Monday 15 July, returning from a visit to Slovakia from 8 to 12 July, Michael O’Flaherty, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, condemned “the discrimination affecting all areas of Roma people’s lives” in the country.
It mentions “Roma women placed in separate maternity wards”, “Roma children segregated in education”, “many Roma deprived of access to adequate housing” and “being turned away from job interviews”.
The Commissioner criticises the “extreme poverty” of certain Roma communities, who live without access to water and electricity in dwellings “totally unfit for human habitation”, relegated to “hazardous locations”.
He stresses the importance of the initiatives often led by civil society, but asserts that “the scale of the human rights challenge calls for a radical shift”.
First and foremost, the Commissioner calls on the government to set up a compensation mechanism for Roma women who have been forcibly sterilised and to investigate allegations of ill-treatment by the police.
He also reiterates his concerns regarding the replacement of the public broadcaster by a new entity and the draft law on the registration of NGOs.
In Slovakia, “the media and civil society are under a disconcerting level of pressure”, he points out.
This visit is the first in a series of visits that the Commissioner is keen to devote to the human rights of Roma and Travellers in Europe. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)