The Roma Rights in the time of COVID’ report came out just ahead of the publication of a key EU legislative proposal focused on fighting anti-gypsyism across Europe.
In the report, ERRC recorded major rights violations in 12 European countries – Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Moldova, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Turkey and Ukraine. “Whilst no one was looking, vulnerable Romani communities were being brutalised by racist police officers, forcefully evicted from their homes, scapegoated by the far-right, denied equal access to healthcare, and left out of emergency policy-making,” the report said. “Their children were being denied access to education, their neighbourhoods closed off and quarantined, all while a hostile media, starved of tabloid content, demonised them for cheap clicks,” the report added. The pandemic has worsened the situation of marginalised Romani communities living in overcrowded and inhuman conditions, which are already more at risk due to limited access to healthcare, drinking water, sanitation and food.
On top of that, Roma were also among the groups the worst affected by the economic and social knock-on effects of the pandemic, the report warned.
