Campaign for Roma women's rights
During the spring the Roma Women's Network of Serbia has campaigned throughout the country in order to get the majority society to open their eyes to Roma women's conditions. During 32 days, from the International Women’s Day on March the 8th to April the 8th on the International Roma day, they visited 25 towns in Serbia where they arranged street actions, handed out information, held meetings and made performances in the streets.
– We want to show that Roma women are strong and have much knowledge. We want to have access to both work and education. With this campaign we wanted to show us as role models for both other Roma women and the majority population, says Vera Kurtic from the organization Women's space, who is the Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation’s partner organization. She was one of the organizers of the campaign.
Vera Kurtic says that their month-long campaign attracted a lot of media, every day there was at least one or two media that drew attention to their work and Roma issues. They are fighting against negative stereotypes about Roma and Roma women in particular.
– We are seen as victims of high need. The problem with that is that the public opinion easy can turn into only seeing us as a problem and a burden to the society. We are concerned that it will turn out as in Hungary, where the Roma population are very exposed and vulnerable today as they are accused of being a burden to society with the high unemployment following the economic crisis, she says.
The media articles on Roma issues during their campaign month was followed by many racist comments and discussions on the web and in social media. But when they met people in the streets around Serbia during the campaign they met no criticism.
– Most people are not openly racist. It's fine to be racist in solitude in front of your computer but not out in public, says Vera Kurtic.
Open racism does happen in public too Vera Kurtic says. As for exemple in the village Jabuka in June 2010 where the entire local Roma population was blamed for the crime committed by one of its members. After this accusation neo fascist groups organize and attack Roma children, women and men.
An important goal of this campaign has been to increase Roma women’s participation in society. One result is that in some municipalities they have developed action plans on how to work to strengthen the Roma women. In some municipalities cooperation between Roma women’s organizations and individual politicians has started. In the Barajevo-municipality money has been set aside in the budget to strengthen the Roma women, which Roma Women’s Network hopes that more municipalities will do in the future.
On June the 6th there were elections to the Serbian Roma council. The Roma Council is an advisory body to the government for the promotion of Roma rights. It acts as official representative of all Roma in the country. In the outgoing Council two women had seats out of a total of 35 members. Roma Women's Network had as a goal with their campaigning that it would increase the number of female members in the council to better represent all Roma.
– When we spoke with women during our month long campaign it showed that only 3 percent were aware that the Council existed. So now when we have spread knowledge of it, we are convinced that far more women voted than last time, says Vera Kurtic.
Roma Women's Network lobbied for the Romani political parties that took part in the elections to have at least 30 percent women on their electoral lists. So it became. In addition, they put together a special women's list. In spite of all these efforts only two women became members of the Council after the election.
– The parties persuaded the women who stood on their lists to write a letter in which they gave up their seats. We will not know the exact number of women seats until the final results of the election is finalized. But with the low amount of support we receive from the men right now, we do not expect this number to exceed two, says Vera Kurtic.
Despite this defeat Vera Kurtic is not dispirited.
– In the next election we will make more women’s lists. And we will get more women to vote and get involved. Now we know how strong we really can be!
FACTS:
42 000 roma persons registered to vote in elections to the Roma Council
According to official figures, there are 108 000 roma in Serbia
According to Roma organizations, there are between 500 000 and 800 000 roma in the country
Åsa Carlman