Minority Rights: The Failure of International Law to Protect the Roma
The Problems of the International Laws:
1. The International Law told that, International human rights regime which is increasingly granting individuals standing as actors within the international system and that system is sufficient to protect members of a minority against discrimination and abuse.
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| Minority Rights of Roma and Problems of International Laws |
But if we look deeply, this system-
- Ignores the necessity of group identity of minorities. Group identity is one of the fundamental elements of a minority group but the international law of human rights ignores the group identity of a minority group and
- This system disregards the fundamentals in protecting their human rights such as a group's culture, religion, language, traditions and cultural heritage.
2. In 1935, the permanent court of international justice concerning minority schools in Albania highlighted the fundamental groups of human rights and their opinion was that, the individual rights alone are not sufficient to protect minorities. As a result, the albanian government was amended to abolish all private schools in 1933. The Albanian government asserted that this amendment was non-discriminatory but this amendment was discriminatory in many cases.
They do not get good education in private schools in terms of their culture, traditions, language relations. Many private schools refused to teach them their beliefs. As a result, they were deprived of their basic rights or did not have a good idea about their basic rights
3. The European Convention established the European court of Human Rights and granted it the authority to hear discriminatory cases from individuals. But this was also problematic because of some of the minority groups such as Roma, who often are not recognized as a minority group by the states in which they reside. So, this was not the proper way of international law to remedy of the discrimination or other things of minority groups.
4. The Council of Europe adopted the framework convention 1994 which focused considerable attention on the rights of minority groups. But it fails to provide minority groups with effective international redress for their grievances and perpetuates. On the other hand, unrecognized minority groups currently face some of the obstacles.
To address this issue, reports sent by the states to the Framework Convention need to be reviewed. But they had no mechanism to review the reports. Although if we look at the present day, the framework convention implements a mechanism which is ineffective because it ignores the fact that states can easily refuse to acknowledge or confer minority status on certain groups, such as the Roma, as has been demonstrated in the case of the Roma in Germany.
The implementation mechanism failed to provide redress and this is not the most effective way for a minority group to improve their conditions. Minorities are only used as actors in the international system or international law. But their collective rights, discriminatory issues remain unsolved.
5. The Right to Education:
The fundamental problems faced by Roma in the field of education include the fact that some Roma children are not registered in the education system, low attendance rates, poor school performances and early dropouts.
6. Problems in Employment:
With the disappearance of their traditional occupations like basket-weaving, sieve making, tinsmithing), the Roma have turned to casual work of the kind not particularly favoured by other segments of society. The foremost common of these are scrap dealing, paper collection, work, seasonal agricultural work and cleaning. Roma who add these occupations don't have any regular income or welfare, which also prevents them from enjoying other rights. While child labour is common among the Roma, a higher number of problems regarding employment are faced by elderly and disabled Roma, yet as by women.
7. Problems of the Right to Housing:
Roma communities board substandard housing in crowded neighbourhoods with poor infrastructure. the bulk of Roma board deedless accommodation while others board makeshift shelters or tents. Many of those places lack adequate infrastructure or amenities, like clean water, electricity, installation, safe roads and transportation. One amongst the largest problems for Roma in terms of enjoying the correct housing is the undeniable fact that they need no legal guarantee of tenancy or ownership for the buildings within which they live. Also Roma face discrimination when renting property.
8. Problems of Access to Health Services:
When Roma go to doctor’s surgeries or hospitals for treatment they are made to wait by health staff, are not given enough attention or are sometimes turned away. On the other hand, Roma’s substandard living conditions have a negative effect on their health. The bad working conditions of Roma citizens who work mostly in low-paid, unskilled, unsafe and precarious jobs are seen to cause chronic diseases. It has also been found that substance addiction poses a threat to the health of Roma children and adolescents.
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