EUobserver on how anti-Roma racism is being exploited during the COVID-19 pandemic – Romea.cz

Romani people living in social exclusion are becoming the scapegoats of the COVID-19 pandemic in different countries around Europe. (PHOTO: Barbora Haviarov, Spolenost pro kulturu, vzdln a komunikaci, Slovakia)

News server EUobserver has published an analysis by Bernard Rorke, an editor with the Brussels-based European Roma Rights Centre, of how anti-Roma and anti-Travellerracism is motivating the responses of officials and politicians around Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, the conditions in which the least fortunate members of these communities live make it difficult for them to follow what are, at this point in time, life-saving recommendations on personal hygiene and social distancing.

Hundreds of thousands of Roma throughout Europe livein overcrowded settlements without access to water, which is also an issue forTravellers livingon overcrowdedsites. Activists in Ireland have been raising the alarm about the danger this represents.

EUobserver reports that for years, local authorities in Ireland have failed to address the accommodation crisis for Travellers, refusing to use the state financing available for this purposeand frequently evictingfamilies, who end up living out of vehicleson the roadside. DrSindy Joyceinformed the paperthat the neglect is intentional: "The racial divide is deeply ingrained into Irish society where hostility and violence towards my people is seen to be justified because of our 'difference' to the mainstream settled population."

The article also touches onthe situation in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, referencing research from the Roma Civil Monitor project. See the full version here.

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EUobserver on how anti-Roma racism is being exploited during the COVID-19 pandemic - Romea.cz