Who are the Roma?
Roma, or Romani peoples, are a traditionally nomadic ethnic group that are predominantly located in Europe, with significant diaspora populations in the Americas. ‘Roma’ is an umbrella-term that encompasses numerous and diverse groups, including ‘Traveller’ populations such as gens du voyage, Gypsies, and Camminanti. The European Union estimates that there are 10 to 12 million Roma living in Europe (6 million in the EU), making the Roma the largest minority in Europe. Despite their association with nomadic lifestyles, approximately 95 percent of Roma today are sedentary and have dedicated home spaces.
From Marginalization and Stigmatization to Exploitation
While trafficking can affect anyone, regardless of ethnicity or social status, there are a number of push factors that make some individuals and communities more vulnerable to human trafficking. These push factors are identical to the social and economic conditions of the Romani communities across Europe. According to a study by the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) and People in Need (PiN), these socioeconomic vulnerabilities include “structural forms of ethnic and gender discrimination, poverty and social exclusion which result in low educational achievement, high levels of unemployment, usury, growing up in state care, domestic violence affecting predominantly women and children and substance abuse.” The current conditions of and vulnerability of Roma were created by centuries of enslavement, persecution and exclusion. The generational trauma of historical discrimination continues to shape the experiences of Roma today.
Bolstered by harmful stereotypes, systemic oppression solidified Roma as a marginalized population throughout the Eurasian continent. As there is a significant overlap of the most prominent factors that contribute to human trafficking and Roma marginalization, Romani communities continue to be one of the most vulnerable groups to trafficking and exploitation in the world. Furthermore, trafficking vulnerabilities are exacerbated in the case of the Roma due to the failure of “national social systems to reduce and eliminate the vulnerable situation in Romani communities” and erecting insurmountable barriers to access of critical public services such as schools, healthcare, employment services and other social services. Additionally, Roma are often denied identity documentation, making them effectively stateless. For many families, statelessness and lack of identity documents persists through generations, continuing cycles of violence and poverty.
Harmful Stereotypes
The stereotypes about Roma are overwhelmingly negative. Eastern Europeans characterize Roma as “uneducated, uninterested in school and work, conniving, dirty, and lazy”. They are also associated with criminality as “beggars, thieves, swindlers, pickpockets, trespassers, rowdies, dirty, immoral, con-man, [and] trickster[s]”. Poor education, lack of social support, and the inability to acquire paid employment push some individuals to commit crimes, but this criminality is wrongly applied to the entire population. In addition, a centuries-old prejudice regarding Roma as “child stealers” further influences perceptions of the Romani communities and even influences criminal investigations. These negative stereotypes have significant influence over the ways Roma experience discrimination as well as their vulnerability to trafficking.
Instability is Vulnerability
As a result of discrimination, European Roma communities have struggled with poverty, inadequate education, unemployment and violence. These socioeconomic conditions create the ideal environment for traffickers to exploit vulnerable members of the Romani communities.
According to a survey conducted in eleven EU member states by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA), that Roma face four major, inter-connected problems regarding education: low preschool attendance; a high risk of segregated schooling compounded by prejudice and discrimination; high drop-out rates before completing secondary education; and low literacy rates. Roma children are also often segregated from non-Roma pupils and given far fewer educational resources. The same EU FRA survey indicated 90% of the Roma surveyed live on incomes below national poverty lines. Of those surveyed, 40% lived in a household where someone went to bed hungry at least once in the last month due to the inability to afford food. Additionally, fewer than one in three Roma reported having paid employment and the same proportion reported being unemployed. Roma have difficulty finding paid, fair work, not only because of their lower level and inadequate education, but because of ethnic discrimination. Insecurity caused by lower education, unemployment, and lack of access to social services make Romani communities more vulnerable to exploitation, as they are more susceptible to fraudulent offers of paid work or other opportunities to help themselves and their families. Romani women and girls are even more vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation. Romani women face a “devastating mix of discrimination, exclusion, inequality, and destitution that is unique and specific to them”. Roma women aged 20 to 64 are employed in paid work at nearly half the rate (24%) of Roma men (40%). On average, Romani women reported lower levels of literacy (77% literate) than Roma men (85% literate).
Throughout Europe and Central Asia, Roma usually live segregated from the rest of the population or alongside other minority groups in “socially deprived areas of low-quality housing”. Segregation tends to occur through administrative processes in which local authorities allocate these areas for Roma settlements. These areas are frequently plagued by environmental hazards, such as waste dumps, landfills and dirty industries, and can have negative impacts on the already poor state of Roma health. In addition to these issues, members of Romani communities are also often victims of forced evictions and demolishment of their informal settlements. Severe housing insecurity contributes greatly to the overall vulnerability of Roma and their susceptibility to human trafficking situations.
According to a study by the ERRC and PiN, Roma had been identified as victims of trafficking for various purposes, including “sexual exploitation, labour exploitation, domestic servitude, organ trafficking, illegal adoption and begging”. The ERRC/PiN study also indicated that Roma women and children were the most represented regardless of the purpose of trafficking. From estimates provided about the “perceived representation of Roma among trafficked persons”, their representation was disproportionate and “several times higher than the proportion of Roma in the general population”. In the 2020 Trafficking in Persons Report, the Romani population was mentioned in the reports of 30 European countries, but, on average, did not stress the disproportionate representation of Roma in trafficked persons that this study showed.
Obstacles to Combating Trafficking of Roma
Lack of Disaggregated Data Collection
Accurate, ethical data collection on trafficking and exploitation is incredibly important in creating effective anti-trafficking policies. Policymakers need to know the disproportionate incidence of Roma as victims of trafficking in order to create tailored policies and programs to address the problem. In the European Union, data protection laws allow for the collection of disaggregated data based on ethnicity as long as safeguards are used to protect this “special personal data” from misuse. These laws have been willfully interpreted in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia as to create a total prohibition of collecting data based on ethnicity. This obstacle to combating trafficking in Roma communities will persist until the governments and anti-trafficking advocates can understand the extent to which Roma are victimized in this region.
Access to Justice
Because of prejudice and false association with criminality, police violence against Roma is common. Abuse by law enforcement can come in the form of “torture and inhumane and degrading treatment” and “occurs during arrest, detention, and search and investigation operations”. Persistent stereotypes reinforce abuse against Roma, including the belief that criminality and criminal occupations, such as theft, drug trafficking and kidnapping, to be “traditional occupations” of the Romani community. As this mistreatment has continued with impunity, Romani communities have developed a distrust for law enforcement and other government agencies. This sense of suspicion and distrust against law enforcement deters members of the Romani community reporting crimes against them, including trafficking. When trafficking cases are reported, the cases are often inadequately investigated and the investigations themselves overly rely on victim self-identification. Not only does this prevent Roma from accessing due justice, but the “low level of victim identification poses a huge barrier to accessing protection mechanisms and services”.
Looking Forward: Risk Multipliers for Trafficking of Roma
The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has hit Roma particularly hard, worsening the poverty and marginalization they already experienced. Roma communities have historically had difficulties accessing healthcare and pandemic restrictions have made it more inaccessible. The preventative measures being encouraged by health officials, such as hand washing and physical distancing, are much more challenging for Roma as many of them live in extreme poverty and without public water infrastructure. The pandemic has already been recognized as a risk multiplier for human trafficking, with economic fallout and job losses increasing vulnerability for men, women and children around the world. The Roma are no exception.
Largely due to environmental racism, the effects of climate change will also disproportionately impact Roma. Climate change will exacerbate their insecurity by bringing a variety of weather changes, like flooding, drought, and extreme temperatures, all of which can be devastating for those in informal settlements living in inadequate housing. These changes in climate will be especially challenging since they are physically segregated onto environmentally hazardous lands and often no access to public water infrastructure in their homes. Additionally, the economic impact of climate change could negatively impact the little paid work in the informal sector, prompting Roma to accept riskier and potentially exploitative employment opportunities. If the marginalized status of Roma remains unchanged, climate change will greatly increase the vulnerability of Roma to trafficking and exploitation.
This blog post was originally shared on the Human Trafficking Center’s Blog, see original post here.
OLIVIA W. DUDLEY 