Children – ERGO Network

ERGO Reaction to European Child Guarantee and EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child

ERGO Network reacts to European Child Guarantee and the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child

On 24 March 2021, the European Commission released a proposal for a Council Recommendation establishing the European Child Guarantee, as well as the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child 2021-2024 for the period 2021-2024. ERGO Network has engaged closely with the run-up of these two initiatives, also as part of the Investing in Children EU Alliance, to ensure that Roma children and their specific concerns were duly incorporated.

The European Child Guarantee aims at providing Member States with guidance and means to support children in need and break the cycle of poverty and social exclusion across generations, through ensuring effective access to healthy nutrition and adequate housing, as well as free early childhood education and care, free education and school-based activities, free healthcare, and at least one free healthy meal a day. We assessed these proposals based on our Input to the European Commission consultation on the Roadmap for a Council Recommendation for a Child Guarantee (October 2020).

ERGO Network warmly welcomes that “children with a minority racial or ethnic background (particularly Roma)” are explicitly included as target group for the scope of the Child Guarantee. Equally positive is that the EU Strategic Framework for Roma Equality, Participation and Inclusion is referred to in the Explanatory Memorandum accompanying the Proposal for a Recommendation, but unfortunately, this link is not reprised in the text of the Recommendation itself. While several references to stigmatisation, segregation and discrimination are included, a clear commitment to fight all forms of discrimination, segregation, bullying, and racism (including antigypsyism) is not mainstreamed throughout the approach, and no specific actions are associated with it. This is a glaring missed opportunity.

We also very much welcome that the approach is explicitly rooted in combatting child poverty and social exclusion, with a focus on children’s rights and wellbeing. We further appreciate that implementation is firmly anchored in the European Semester, with Member States having 6 months to present a National Action Plan and appoint a national Child Guarantee Coordinator to oversee the implementation. Furthermore, they must ensure participation of stakeholders, including children and civil society, and we hope that the necessary support and outreach measures will be put in place for Roma children, Roma communities, and Roma NGOs to be able to engage with these processes on equal footing.

Read our full assessment of the proposal for a Recommendation establishing the European Child Guarantee here.

The EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child 2021-2024 aims at addressing persisting and emerging challenges, as well as proposing concrete actions to protect, promote and fulfil children’s rights, so that every child enjoys the same rights and lives free from discrimination and intimidation. We had submitted a detailed Input to the European Commission consultation on the Strategy (November 2020), and we reviewed the Strategy in light of the concerns and demands expressed therein.

ERGO Network salutes the many mentions of Roma children throughout the Strategy, with explicit references to hunger, poverty, school segregation, early school leaving, early childhood education and care, and access to education. While the document points to the enabling conditions on Roma inclusion and poverty reduction that Member States need to fulfil for the next MFF programming period, unfortunately, no concrete link is made in the Strategy with the EU Framework for Roma Equality, Inclusion, and Participation, which is a great missed opportunity. We further welcome that discrimination is highlighted as an important factor affecting children’s wellbeing and their access to rights, while racial and ethnic origin, as well as ethnic minorities, are also named several times. Sadly, there is no priority as such to combat discrimination, and antigypsyism is not referred.

The anchoring of the Strategy in core EU values such as equality, inclusion, gender equality, anti-racism and pluralism is also very positive, as well as identifying the fight against poverty, inequalities and discrimination as prerequisites to enable the active participation of children. We welcome the proposed establishment of the EU Network for Children’s Rights, and express the hope that the specific concerns of Roma children will be included in a participatory manner in this structure, as well as in the proposed annual European Forum on the Rights of the Child, where the Commission will report on progress for implementation, and the future Children’s Participation Platform.

Read our full assessment of EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child 2021-2024 here.

ERGO Network and its members will continue to monitor the adoption and implementation processes, at EU and national level, of these two important initiatives. We aim to ensure that Roma children’s voices are being heard, and that appropriate links will be made between children’s rights and wellbeing and the objectives of the EU Roma Strategic Framework.

For more information on our work on Roma child poverty and exclusion, please contact c.tanasie@ergonetwork.org.

EU Child Guarantee: Don’t leave Roma children behind

Input to the European Commission consultation on the Roadmap for a Council Recommendation for a Child Guarantee

The European Commission will be proposing a Child Guarantee in 2021, an instrument specifically designed to tackle the situation of children in need.

The Child Guarantee is meant to ensure that all children in Europe who are at risk of poverty, social exclusion, or are otherwise disadvantaged, have access to essential services of good quality.

It will recommend that EU countries invest in and develop strategies and action plans to ensure that children in need have access to free or affordable services such as education, healthcare, nutrition & housing, culture and leisure activities.

ERGO Network strongly welcomes the initiative for an EU Child Guarantee and has given input into the Roadmap leading towards it (Download the full input). With Roma children especially hard hit by poverty, we appreciate the attention paid to this important topic.

The first years of a child’s life are the most important in their personal development, and yet Roma children have been left behind for centuries in what concerns a good start in life. While the Roadmap towards the Child Guarantee identifies several groups of “children in need”, Roma children are not one of them. This is unacceptable, where the Fundamental Rights Agency found that every third Roma child (30%) lives in households where someone went to bed hungry at least once in the previous month, and only about half (53%) of young Roma children are enrolled in early childhood education and care programmes. Unless they are explicitly mentioned as target group and specific measures put in place to deal with very specific needs, experience shows that Roma children will once again be left behind.

The Roadmap features an almost exclusive focus on services, where nothing is said about access to income. There are no poor children in rich families, and wrap-around support for parents must be part of the solution, including income support and pathway approaches towards sustainable, quality jobs. Currently, only 43% of Roma aged 20-64% are in paid work, and over 80% of Europe’s Roma are at risk of poverty and social exclusion, according to FRA. Poverty has a considerable impact on the children’s physical, mental, and emotional development, and increases the chances of lagging behind in all the aspects of their adult life.

The vicious circles of poverty, spatial segregation, and discrimination act as powerful barriers, preventing Roma children from accessing education on equal footing with their non-Roma peers. While education, including early childhood education and care, is touted to be free in many countries, it is de facto not, and many poor Roma families can’t cope with the associated costs of clothing, nappies, transport, hygiene etc. Lack of majority languages skills, limited access to early childhood education and care, and a state of poverty which does not allow for proper studying at home mean that Roma children end up segregated and bullied by colleagues, their parents, and staff alike, and even sometimes placed in schooling for children with learning disabilities. During the Covid-19 pandemic and associated protection and prevention measures, many Roma children found themselves unable to access online education, due to absent infrastructure and equipment (the digital divide).

In what concerns housing, many Roma neighbourhoods are segregated or isolated, with no childcare or healthcare facilities nearby. Adequate housing is an urgent priority for Roma communities, as one in three Roma (32%) live in households with a leaking roof, damp walls, or rot, one in five Roma (20%) live in dwellings that are too dark, and 78% of Roma live in overcrowded households. These disastrous living conditions have a tremendously damaging impact on the health and wellbeing of Roma children, who experience significant health inequalities. The life expectancy of Roma across Europe is 10 to 15 years lower than of the majority population. In many countries, the public health infrastructure does not cover Roma communities, with the nearest clinic (not to mention hospital) often located far away. Additional complicating factors include the lack of identity papers, the lack a legal address, the lack of access to a bank account, the lack of information about registration processes and available services, as well as language barriers. Investing in children must mean, first and foremost, guaranteeing good health and wellbeing for all, particularly those suffering the most disadvantages, such as Roma children.

In order to ensure that Roma children develop and thrive while enjoying the same opportunities as their non-Roma peers, it is fundamental to tackle antigypsyism in all its forms, as well as intersectional discrimination. 41% of Roma feel they have been discriminated against in everyday situations such as looking for work, at work, or when trying to access housing, health, and education – and this is the environment that Roma children grow up in. This should be a de facto horizontal priority in the fields of education, employment, health, housing, and poverty reduction. Preventive and proactive measures are needed to alter public perceptions, prevalent misrepresentations, and misinformation about Roma, and to develop positive counter-narratives. The Child Guarantee should strive to ensure the teaching of Romani language and history in schools, including about the Holocaust and slavery of Roma across Member States, as well as for the necessary dedicated special pedagogical support, including trained Roma education mediators in communities.

The Covid-19 situation highlights the urgent need to invest in proper care services and income support to children and their families. In order to provide equal opportunities for every Roma child, we must guarantee that Roma children and families are not left behind in the Child Guarantee. Appropriate links must be made to the objectives of the EU Strategic Framework for Roma Equality and Inclusion, and interplay ensured between the implementation of the Child Guarantee multi-annual national strategies and the National Roma Integration Strategies. The EU Cohesion Policy and recovery funds will also have a key role to play.

The Child Guarantee will only be effective if it achieves wide ownership by beneficiaries, if it is rooted in direct evidence from the ground about what works and what is needed, and if its delivery and monitoring are underpinned by a comprehensive and meaningful partnership of all stakeholders, including civil society organisations. Tailored outreach measures need to be put in place to ensure the participation of Roma children and that of their parents, including through the civil society organisations representing them. Clear dialogue and cooperation protocols need to be put in place, to ensure that the voice of marginalised and racialised children is heard and taken into account, while necessary financial resources need to be made available to support Roma NGOs and build awareness, participation, and active citizenship, as well as more resilient democracies.

Workshop on trafficking in Roma children

ERGO Network’s research and advocacy coordinator Jelena Jovanovic held a workshop addressing the trafficking in Roma children in the framework of the seminar ‘Combatting the exploitation of children’ organised by the Benelux working group on human trafficking on 17th November 2017. The workshop was organised and co-facilitated by Maaike van Groenestyn, senior advisor of the municipality of Amsterdam.

In two consecutive workshop sessions, the participants could share their experiences in dealing with trafficking as well as learn about new approaches from ERGO’s expertise and from each other.

After hearing case studies brought by Christiane Roelants from the Brussels Police, the participants discussed all the possible factors they believe put Roma children in a vulnerable position, as well as specific forms of trafficking where Roma child victims are (over)represented. They also reflected on challenges in identifying and dealing with cases of Roma children victims of trafficking and offered solutions to overcome the challenges. It was highlighted that antigypsyism plays an important role as a risk factor for Roma children victims of trafficking. A particular focus was given to the role of institutions and organizations in the anti-trafficking policy mechanisms.

ERGO Network asks for end to segregation of Romani children

ERGO Network asks for end to segregation of Romani children 10 years after landmark decision of European Court on Human Rights

Press release – Brussels – 15/11/2017

10 years ago 18 Romani children from Ostrava in Czech Republic received a positive verdict of the European Court on Human Rights, acknowledging that placing them in segregated substandard education for children with mental or intellectual impairments constitutes a violation of their human rights.

This decision on the D.H. case on 13 November 2007 constituted a turning point for Roma children and their families in Europe, as for the first time a court ruled that segregation in education is unlawful.

Still today, however, Roma children continue to be perceived as outsiders and intruders in European countries where they have lived for centuries and are often denied access to quality education. In Central and Eastern Europe, segregation mechanisms channel on average30 percent of Roma students into ethnically segregated and lower quality schools and classes.

Gabriela Hrabanova, Director of ERGO Network, points out: “Putting our children into segregated schools is a direct manifestation of racism, deriving from the deeply embedded structural antigypsyism in the practice of authorities, institutions and society as a whole”.

Segregation in education does not only seriously harm the prospects of Roma students who don’t receive quality education, are at greater risk of poverty and are stigmatised for the rest of their lives; it denies all children the benefits of diversity in education and the chance to learn from one another. Parents need to be better informed and mobilised in order not to send their children to segregated schools.

ERGO Network calls on the European Union and its Member States to strictly follow-up on the infringement procedures for discrimination against Roma students launched against the governments of Hungary, Slovakia and Czech Republic and to step up their efforts to ensure equal citizenship of the 6 Million Roma in the EU. This can include a local ex-ante conditionality for accessing EU funds that will put in place local desegregation plans, continued civil society monitoring on the implementation of National Roma Integration Strategies and the use of EU funds and stronger efforts to combat antigypsyism throughout the EU.

Download the press release here.

The European Roma Grassroots Organisations Network (ERGO) brings together over 25 (pro) Roma grassroots organisations from across Europe to empower communities, fight antigypsyism and achieve equal citizenship.

Contact: Jamen Gabriela Hrabanova (g.hrabanova@ergonetwork.org, +32 2 893 1049), www.ergonetwork.org