it’s international romani day
today is technically a day to celebrate our heritage and our culture, but i want to use this as an opportunity to raise awareness of just how bad the situation is when it comes to us.
the oppression of romani people in europe is nothing new. it goes back to the middle ages. romani people have been the victims of ethnic cleansing, slavery, forced labour, child abduction, forced assimilation and eviction from their homes for centuries, with the last genocide happening only 70 years ago during the holocaust in which we were targeted alongside jews as the primary enemy of racial purity.
romani were legislated against in the same way, branded in the same way, deported in the same way, tortured and abused in the same way and killed en masse in the same way, and yet this is continually erased from the history books or barely worth a footnote. all that despite the fact that more than half of europe’s romani population is estimated to have died in the porajmos.
it took until 1982 for the porajmos to be acknowledged at all and even then it was only in west germany. the entire 40 years before that people told romani our holocaust was “legitimate official measures against persons committing criminal acts, not the result of policy driven by racial prejudice”. the crime was exisiting and the legitimate official measures were genocide. even after it was officially acknowledged we got no reperations and it is still continually swept under the carpet.
some of the legislations against us only became illegal in 2003, forced sterilisation of romani women being one. not that this stops that issue from still being a problem.
nowadays discrimination against romani people is still completely legal in the majority of european countries and even countries in which it’s not legal participate in it either way. this doesn’t extend to only european countries either, the usa and canada are just as guilty of it.
romani people are denied education, health care, housing and service based on our ethnicity and are disproportionate targets of violence and crime. in many countries in europe we are the number one group targeted by hate crimes. often we are not allowed to attend schools or have to go to a special segregated school that is basically useless.
we are 90% more likely than any other citizen in our countries to live in extreme poverty in living conditions which are considered to be violating basic human rights. many romani people have to live without electricity, running water or food. we are consistently illegally evicted in countries we have the right to be in and we face violence and persecution from both the civil public and the police.
there are frequent anti-roma protests in countless countries calling for violence against us and urging the government to deny us asylum and shelter. people burn our camps down after chasing us out of them. frequently romani children are being taken away from their parents for not looking romani enough because of the stereotype that we steal children.
the situation is dire and we need help. please spread as much awareness of these things as you can and if you even have five bucks to spare, consider donating to errc.org to help them fight for romani rights in europe. (or another trustworthy romani charity/rights organisation.) one of the many reasons why this is still going on is because so little people are aware of what’s happening to us. you can change that.
najis tuke for reading so far and for your support and help.
