THE PLIGHT OF THE ROMA: THE ALMOST-FORGOTTEN ETHNIC GROUP.

• Author: Nanda, Ved

1. INTRODUCTION

   (1) congratulate the Editorial Board of the Global Studies Law Review for celebrating Professor Leila Sadat by producing a special volume in recognition of her monumental contributions as a leading scholar in international and comparative law who has played a pivotal role in shaping the current dialogue in the critically important field of international criminal law. I'm honored to pay tribute to my friend, whom I have known and worked with for almost three decades.

   Professor Sadat and I share a passion for human rights, we strive and act in furtherance of the promotion and protection of human rights of the underprivileged, and those with feeble or no voice. It is in that spirit that I am contributing this short essay on The Plight of the Roma.

   The story of the Roma / Romani people (I will use these two terms interchangeably) (2) is a story of persecution, discrimination, oppression, bigotry, subjugation, and violence, not only in Europe where they are the largest and the most deprived and maligned ethnic minority there, but also in the United States and in many other countries. They indeed are unwanted everywhere.

   This kind of pervasive mistreatment has created in them a fear and distrust of most governments, some Roma are hesitant even to self-identify. So many governments have treated them with suspicion and have not even allowed them to settle, forcing them to adopt a nomadic lifestyle. (3)

   The primary focus of this essay is on the Roma situation in Europe and the United States. After recounting their history and mistreatment in general, which has spiraled especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in January 2020, I highlight the discrimination they have suffered in Europe and the U.S. This is followed by reviewing the responses by the United Nations and the European Union to ameliorate their conditions. I conclude with a few recommendations.

2. THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE ROMA PEOPLE

   Although much of the early history of the Romani people remains a mystery, a 2016 study based on linguistic, cultural, genetic, and anthropological evidence finds that "the proto-Roma population is thought to have originated on the Indian subcontinent," and dispersed through their migration routes through Persia, Armenia, and the Balkans, arriving in Eastern Europe around a thousand years ago. (4) While most Roma stayed in the Balkan Peninsula, some groups spread all across the European continent by the end of the fifteenth century. Some were forced into slavery in what are today Romania, Moldova, and parts of Hungary, while others either spread within the Austro-Hungarian Empire or moved into Central and Western Europe. After the end of Roma slavery, in the 19th century, the Roma spread worldwide, and most kept their endogamous rules and nomadic lifestyle. (5) Today, the majority of the estimated 11 million Romani live in Europe, concentrated in Eastern European countries. (6)

3. PERSECUTION AND GENOCIDE OF THE ROMANI PEOPLE BY THE NAZIS

   It is undisputed that ever since the Romani migrated from India, they have faced persecution from anti-Roma racism, which is often ignored. To illustrate, the Nazi persecution in pre-war Germany (7) and the subsequent murder of around 500,000 Roma and Sinti by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Second World War provides a vivid example of this tragedy being overlooked, even in Europe.

   The curator of the Weiner Holocaust Library, Barbara Warnock, systematically documented the evidence about the Nazi oppression of the Roma and displayed it in an exhibition entitled "Forgotten Victims: The Nazi Genocide of the Roma and Sinti." (8) The exhibits included unpublished eyewitness accounts collected in the 1950s of the "Gypsy" camp at Auschwitz, where 21,000 of the 23,000 people there died of starvation, ill health, and in the gas chambers. Warnock laments that all this "is a little-known aspect of the atrocities committed during [World War II]." (9) The Nazis considered Roma, like Jews, to be of "alien blood" and a threat to the "Aryan Master Race," and thus subjected them to forced sterilization and medical experiments. (10) They were forced first into labor camps and were eventually sent to concentration camps to die. (11)

4. DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE ROMA AFTER WORLD WAR II

   Roma people continue to be marginalized. The following reports point to the gravity of their situation.

   1. Discrimination in Europe

      The following few examples illustrate the nature and scope of the problem.

      The European Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) defines "anti-Gypsyism" as a "specific form of racism, an ideology founded on racial superiority, a form of dehumanisation and institutional racism nurtured by historical discrimination, which is expressed, among others, by violence, hate speech, exploitation, stigmatisation and the most blatant kind of discrimination." (12)

      The 2018 FRA report revealed that one out of three Roma people experienced some form of daily harassment--either offensive or threatening comments in person, threats of violence in person, offensive gestures, or inappropriate staring, offensive or threatening e-mails or text messages, or offensive comments about them online. Such harassment ultimately stems from the belief that the presence of Romani individuals results in stagnant housing prices, high levels of crime, and decreased motivations from outside investors.

      The FRA conducted two surveys of Roma and Travellers--one each in 2019 and 2020. The 2019 survey showed that 45 percent of Roma and Travellers in the six EU countries surveyed, felt that they were discriminated against in at least one area of life, and 44 percent of respondents experienced hate-motivated harassment in the 12 months preceding the survey. (13) Roma are also blamed for spreading the Coronavirus in Eastern European countries. (14) Findings also showed that almost a quarter of Roma people have no national health insurance. A third of Roma households do not have tap water, just over half have an indoor flush toilet or shower and 78% of Roma live in overcrowded households while 43% of Roma experience discrimination when trying to buy or rent housing.

      The 2020 FRA survey found that about 7 percent of the 4,659 Romani respondents say that they were physically attacked because of being Roma in the 12 months before the survey, with most occurring in the Netherlands and Sweden. (15) The survey also revealed that 93 percent of hate-motivated harassment and 88 percent of physical attacks that happened in the past five years were never reported. (16) Even...