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Introduction
Introduction
Another year running the Fundación Secretariado Gitano (FSG) presents its Report on Discrimination and
the Roma Community, whose main objective is to continue to call attention to, raise awareness and report
cases of discrimination and anti-Gypsyism faced by the Roma community, targeting the administration,
key stakeholders and the society in general, to jointly seek a solution to this serious social problem and
build a more cohesive and just society. Along with that effort, through this publication we give voice to
the victims of discrimination who. as we know all too well, are hidden and numbed by misinformation, fear
and mistrust.
One of the FSG’s priorities for more than 10 years now has been to promote equality and combat ethnic
discrimination as the latter is a violation of a fundamental right and constitutes an offence against the exis-
ting regulatory framework in this area (Articles 1 and 14 of the Spanish Constitution and Directives 2000/43/
EC and 2000/78/EC) and is an affront to personal dignity. We believe that, together with employment and
education, combating anti-Gypsyism is a fundamental pillar to achieving Roma inclusion. Therefore,
in 2015,
the FSG created the “Department of Equality and Anti-discrimination”
to bolster work in this area through:
- Information, assistance and support activities targeting victims of racial or ethnic discrimination, as
the coordinating body of the Network of Assistance Centres for Victims of Discrimination, part of
the Equal Treatment Council;
- Technical assistance and training of key players in the fight against discrimination: mostly technical
personnel and the heads of administrations and social organisations, jurists, police and the media;
- Promotion of policies supporting the advancement of equal treatment by monitoring anti-
discrimination legislation and its everyday enforcement;
- Social awareness-raising actions through the dissemination of information related with the fight
against ethnic discrimination and the promotion of equal treatment and different social awareness-
raising campaigns;
- Strategic litigation, i.e. defence of equal treatment before the courts and direct coordination with the
hate crime and discrimination prosecution offices;
- Actions to promote equal treatment and opportunities for Roma women.