Government of the Republic of Serbia
A panel discussion “Free Legal Help for Roma – what has been achieved and what is yet to come” was organized in the Centre for Culture Grad within the project “We are here together – European support for Roma inclusion”.
“The integration of Roma and improvement of their position is an important condition in negotiations of Serbia with the EU”, said Nicolas Bizel, a representative of the EU delegation in Serbia. Bizel explained that “the position of Roma is a constituent part of the Chapter 23 which directly deals with human rights, as well as the Chapters 19 dealing with employment and social policies”. He pointed out that every member state as well as the ones which have the candidate status should fight for the better position of Roma – the most numerous and at the same time the poorest and the most marginalised minority community in Europe.
Michael Uyehara, Deputy Head of the OSCE Mission to Serbia, stated that the fight against prejudice was needed and in this context one should work not only with the Roma population but at all levels of society too. “The commitment of the Government and work at a high state level are needed”, Uyehara said.
The non-governmental organization Praxis which deals with providing legal assistance to the Roma, primarily with regard to the lack of legal identification documents, has enabled about 120,000 of Roma people to receive legal identification documents since 2008 and has provided sources for paying all procedures for issuing personal identification documents for 17,600 persons, they said in the meeting.
Ivana Kostic, Praxis executive manager, pointed out that the problems were the inconsistency in procedures in state authorities and long-lasting procedures in order to obtain personal identification documents for those who were not registered in birth records when they were born.
Source: europa.rs
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