Fundación Secretariado Gitano

The Fundación Secretariado Gitano presents its report "Discrimination and the Roma Community 2020" with the focus on discrimination in employment, now available in English version. [editar]

• Equal treatment
• Employment

This year's Report presents, as usual, the cases of discrimination collected throughout Spain by the Fundación Secretariado Gitano (FSG) in the previous year, progress, good practices and the most recent jurisprudence on discrimination. As the central theme of the feature articles, this year is dedicated to discrimination in access to employment.

425 registered cases

The report includes 425 cases of discrimination and anti-Gypsyism registered and assisted by the FSG in its capacity as coordinator of the Service for Assistance and Orientation to Victims of Racial or Ethnic Discrimination and from the Calí program, for the Equality of Roma Women. The cases have occurred in areas such as the media and the internet, with a total of 68 cases; in social networks, with a total of 115 cases; in Employment, with 53 cases; in Access to goods and services, with 75 cases; in the Police Services, with 9 cases; in Education, with 37 cases; in Housing, with 25 cases and in Health, with 11; and in Others (including the most extreme cases of hate crimes), with 32 cases.

Regarding the profile of the victims, it is found that discrimination mainly affects young Roma people, between 16 and 30 years old, and women, with 222 women of the 321 identified victims.

Discrimination in access to employment

The report's central theme this year is discrimination in access to employment, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the FSG's training and employment programme Accede and with the launch, last week, of its # PanParaMañana campaign, with demands equal employment opportunities for young Roma in the labor market. This report focuses on the significant number of documented cases over the years in which companies, employers or other workers have treated Roma people less favorably based solely on their ethnic origin. The FSG points to the need for the institutions to combat this scourge and for any policy aimed at improving the employability of Roma people to include, among its objectives, effective measures to combat discrimination and anti-Gypsyism in the workplace.

 

The impact of COVID 19 on discrimination and anti-Gypsyism

Although the report presented today will be seen on the cases documented and attended by the organization throughout 2019, that is, before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, in the presentation ceremony the impact of the current crisis has been alluded to health, economic and social discrimination and anti-gypsyism. In this sense, it has been stressed that this context is generating specific forms of discrimination, stigmatization and hate speech against the Roma community, at the same time that there is a worsening of the vulnerability of the victims, which could mean a setback in the exercise of the rights of those who suffer this scourge.

 

Conclusions: need for a comprehensive Equal Treatment Law

This report has once again highlighted the need for a comprehensive law on equal treatment to be passed that allows for an institutional response to many of the discriminatory incidents faced by Roma people on a daily basis and which, with the current legislation, remain, on too many occasions, without the compensation to which they are entitled as victims of violations of fundamental rights. In this sense, the organization once again urges the Government and all parliamentary groups to promote the approval of a regulation that has tried to be processed up to four times in the last ten years, thus complying with the recommendations. European and international human rights issues.


The presentation of this annual report took place last December, in the main hall of the Ministry of Equality with the participation of Isidro Rodríguez, General Director of the Fundación Secretariado Gitano, Patricia Bezunartea, General Director of Family Diversity and Services Social in the Ministry of Social Rights and Agenda 2030, and with Rita Bosaho, General Director of Equal Treatment and Ethnic-Racial Diversity in the Ministry of Equality.

At the closing of the event, Antumi Toasijé, President of the Council for the Elimination of Racial or Ethnic Discrimination, and the Roma Deputies Beatriz Carrillo, Vice President of the National Council of the Roma People and Sara Giménez, as Vice President of the Fundación Secretariado Gitano.

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