The news server Romea reports that the Czech Government Human Rights Council has approved a resolution recommending the government provide one-time monetary compensation to all women who underwent forced sterilization by the State between the years 1972 and 1991when regulations from the Czechoslovak Labor and Social Affairs Ministry were in effect.
Here is a powerful short film about the practice of sterilization of Czech Roma institutionalized during communism, but practiced into the 2000s:
Showing posts with label institutional racism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label institutional racism. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Slovakia Urged to End School Segregation for Romani Children
Amnesty International is urging the Slovak government to "immediately end the segregation of Romani children in the country's education system."
The Amnesty International website states:
More here.
A powerful video about school segregation for Romani children in Slovakia can be viewed here. The situation is comparable to that in the Czech Republic:
The Amnesty International website states:
This practice leaves thousands of Romani pupils in substandard education in schools and classes for pupils with "mild mental disabilities" or ethnically segregated mainstream schools and classes.
In a briefing to the Slovak government, Steps to end segregation in education, Amnesty International points to serious gaps in the enforcement and monitoring of the ban on discrimination and segregation in the Slovak educational system.
More here.
A powerful video about school segregation for Romani children in Slovakia can be viewed here. The situation is comparable to that in the Czech Republic:
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Even for Highly Qualified Roma Candidates, Racism Still a Barrier in Czech Job Market
"I am very upset,” says Milan Kováč, who is visiting the Dženo Association office.
“You need to try harder,” one of my office mates jokes sarcastically and we all laugh, but the laughter is tinged with a sense of letdown.
Mr. Kováč, holds a college business degree, knows five languages and has many years of professional experience in settings ranging from the non-profit and government to the private sector. He has, for instance, worked as Project Manager at both, the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the non-profit Athinganoi, an organization specializing in supporting Romani students in obtaining secondary and post-secondary education.
Since losing his job eight months ago, he has been searching for work. He has applied for more than sixty positions and has gone through an average of seven job interviews a week to no avail.
Recently, he applied for the position of Local Coordinator at the governmental Agency for Social Inclusion in Roma Localities, which employs only one Roma of the total of twenty-five staff. As a strongly qualified applicant and a Roma himself, he was convinced his chances were high, especially considering the fact that the role of the agency is to promote the integration of Roma in socially excluded regions in the job market, among its other missions.
Upon successfully completing the first phase of the interview process, Mr. Kováč was verbally invited back. However, soon he learned he was not selected for the second round of interviews.
Mr. Kováč’s experience is not unique. A multi-country study by the European Roma Rights Center, conducted partly in the Czech Republic, found this to be the case:
In his appeal letter, sent to the agency which rejected him after the first round of interviews, Mr. Kováč wonders whether the organizations in charge of eliminating barriers to equal participation in Czech society facing the Roma are truly “pro-Roma.“ He writes:
When the fact that not a single Roma advanced to the second round of interviews was criticized, Michael Kocáb, commissioner on human rights, who chairs the Monitoring Committee of the Agency for Social Inclusion in Roma Localities, responded that he was not aware that there were any Roma applicants interviewed to begin with. Mr. Kocáb has in the past said he is committed to increasing the number of Roma employees in the governmental agency. Additionally, Mr. Kováč was promised an appointment where he could present his case, but this meeting never took place. Instead, in the hall of the Office of the Government, in passing, he was told by the agency’s director that he was not chosen because he lacked the necessary qualifications, although he was clearly selected as a promising candidate earlier.
Many a study, including a 2008 report prepared jointly by the Government of the Czech Republic and the World Bank, conclude that the barriers for the Roma in the job market are largely due to a lack of skills and qualifications. But what about the Roma who do possess the experience and skills that match the position sought?
The above-mentioned 2006 ERRC study, Systemic Exclusion of Roma from Employment, states:
Mr. Kováč touches on the very issue of anti-Roma discrimination in his letter:
Unfortunately, both cronyism and racism still play a determining role in key decision-making in this country. Those with whom I have spoken who have been active in Roma rights advocacy for years confirm this reality, which the ERRC study enumerates and Mr. Kováč's story illustrates.
One way to combat discrimination in the job search and recruitment stage, suggests ERRC, is to mandate the collection of data disaggregated by ethnicity and to monitor and respond, in a structural way, to inequities based on this data in order to improve job access for qualified Roma applicants. This is currently not done. The ERRC states:
***
[This post originally appeared on Tereza Bottman's blog.]
“You need to try harder,” one of my office mates jokes sarcastically and we all laugh, but the laughter is tinged with a sense of letdown.
Mr. Kováč, holds a college business degree, knows five languages and has many years of professional experience in settings ranging from the non-profit and government to the private sector. He has, for instance, worked as Project Manager at both, the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the non-profit Athinganoi, an organization specializing in supporting Romani students in obtaining secondary and post-secondary education.
Since losing his job eight months ago, he has been searching for work. He has applied for more than sixty positions and has gone through an average of seven job interviews a week to no avail.
Recently, he applied for the position of Local Coordinator at the governmental Agency for Social Inclusion in Roma Localities, which employs only one Roma of the total of twenty-five staff. As a strongly qualified applicant and a Roma himself, he was convinced his chances were high, especially considering the fact that the role of the agency is to promote the integration of Roma in socially excluded regions in the job market, among its other missions.
Upon successfully completing the first phase of the interview process, Mr. Kováč was verbally invited back. However, soon he learned he was not selected for the second round of interviews.
Mr. Kováč’s experience is not unique. A multi-country study by the European Roma Rights Center, conducted partly in the Czech Republic, found this to be the case:
The most prevalent incidence of employment discrimination against Roma is at the job search stage and in the recruitment practices that companies apply. Raw, direct discrimination prevents applicants from even reaching the phase of the interview. Many companies have a total exclusion policy regarding the employment of Roma and practice across-the-board unmitigated discrimination against Romani applicants. As a result, Romani job-seekers are eliminated and excluded from the application process at the very outset; regardless of education, qualifications and competences for the job.
In his appeal letter, sent to the agency which rejected him after the first round of interviews, Mr. Kováč wonders whether the organizations in charge of eliminating barriers to equal participation in Czech society facing the Roma are truly “pro-Roma.“ He writes:
The Agency for Social Inclusion in Roma Localities was founded to advocate for the social inclusion of Roma . . . One of its roles is to promote the inclusion of Roma from socially excluded communities in the job market. There is also a whole host of non-governmental and non-profit organizations which present themselves as “pro-Roma.“ They champion an open attitude on the part of employers towards the Roma under the generous support of the European Social Fund. Are these organizations themselves actually open to employing the Roma and are they in reality practicing what they preach?
When the fact that not a single Roma advanced to the second round of interviews was criticized, Michael Kocáb, commissioner on human rights, who chairs the Monitoring Committee of the Agency for Social Inclusion in Roma Localities, responded that he was not aware that there were any Roma applicants interviewed to begin with. Mr. Kocáb has in the past said he is committed to increasing the number of Roma employees in the governmental agency. Additionally, Mr. Kováč was promised an appointment where he could present his case, but this meeting never took place. Instead, in the hall of the Office of the Government, in passing, he was told by the agency’s director that he was not chosen because he lacked the necessary qualifications, although he was clearly selected as a promising candidate earlier.
Many a study, including a 2008 report prepared jointly by the Government of the Czech Republic and the World Bank, conclude that the barriers for the Roma in the job market are largely due to a lack of skills and qualifications. But what about the Roma who do possess the experience and skills that match the position sought?
The above-mentioned 2006 ERRC study, Systemic Exclusion of Roma from Employment, states:
The mass-unemployment of working age Roma is most often perceived as a labour market supply- side issue and the high level of unemployment is attributed to Roma’s inability to find employment because of their low levels of education; out-of-date work skills and detachment from the labour market. Also because large segments of the Romani community lost out during the economic and industrial restructuring that occurred during the transition from Communism. Undoubtedly, these factors create very real barriers that reduce employability and exclude many Roma from work but there is another dimension – discrimination – which significantly aggravates the situation and causes systemic exclusion from employment for vast numbers of working-age Roma.
Mr. Kováč touches on the very issue of anti-Roma discrimination in his letter:
I want the society to know that the Roma are continuing their education, raising their qualifications, applying for quality work, but that still barriers, factors and influences exist which make it impossible to achieve success.
Unfortunately, both cronyism and racism still play a determining role in key decision-making in this country. Those with whom I have spoken who have been active in Roma rights advocacy for years confirm this reality, which the ERRC study enumerates and Mr. Kováč's story illustrates.
One way to combat discrimination in the job search and recruitment stage, suggests ERRC, is to mandate the collection of data disaggregated by ethnicity and to monitor and respond, in a structural way, to inequities based on this data in order to improve job access for qualified Roma applicants. This is currently not done. The ERRC states:
There is strong evidence, from countries with the most effective measures to combat racial discrimination in employment, that workforce monitoring, including the collection of data on ethnicity, is a key means of obtaining statistical evidence to support positive actions to address under-representation of ethnic groups in the workplaces and more generally in specific occupations and sectors of the labour market. Monitoring, recording, reporting and responding to the ethnic composition of a workplace are key factors that guarantee the effectiveness and efficiency of equal opportunities policies.
***
[This post originally appeared on Tereza Bottman's blog.]
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Czechs' Response to Rising Extremism: Prevention through education?
With right-wing extremism on the rise, increased risk of racially motivated harassment and violence against minorities has become a reality in the Czech Republic. The economic downturn in Europe, as in the United States, is plunging people into poverty and fueling xenophobia, racism, insecurity and hightening tensions between disadvantaged groups. Extremist ideology is also becoming increasingly used in political rhetoric, and many worry about the possibility of hate becoming a mainstream political vehicle as has happened in Hungary, for instance, where the far-right party Jobbik currently holds 47 of 386 parliamentary seats.
The annual report of the human rights group, Czech Helsinki Commitee, cites as one of the primary issues facing the Czech Republic, "the increasing radicalization of neo-Nazis and violent attacks against the Roma population." An example of this is an April 2009 arson attack on a Roma family, which resulted in a two-year-old girl suffering severe burns to 80 percent of her body. The perpetrators of the attack are associated with a far-right group and are currently on trial.
In light of this alarming trend, what kinds of efforts are Czech institutions undertaking, specifically in the field of education (a later post will focus on violence prevention via the criminal justice system), to curb the appeal of hate group ideology to economically struggling whites?
In response to the growth of the neo-Nazi movement, and with the intention of steering young people away from the dangers of the ideology of hate, Varianty, an educational program of the human rights organization People in Need, created a booklet for teachers to use in the classroom. The booklet is available online and in CD-form to be ordered for free by schools. The organization is, according to the news service iDnes, currently out of funds to provide printed copies of the text.
The approximately two-hundred-page long booklet, "The Threat of Neo-Nazism, Democratic Opportunities", describes the history of homegrown right-wing extremism. The text, developed in cooperation with the police unit specializing in monitoring extremist activity, also contains pictures of neo-Nazis and their insignia as well as topics for facilitated discussions. The most controversial aspect of the booklet is the inclusion of passages from hate group literature. The authors, however, argue that such information is widely available to those students who choose to seek it out and that examining it critically is crucial.
In the booklet, teachers are provided with guidelines on how to present and analyze the materials with their students. However, the reality is that many educators are still unsure about how to approach the subjects of extremism and racism, and as a result steer away from providing their students with the opportunity to examine hate group ideology critically. Clearly, instructors need more tools and support on how to implement such ambitious programs in their classrooms. Additionally, there needs to be a system-wide effort to infuse public school curriculum with anti-bias education.
According to the press agency iDnes, the Czech Ministry of Education is currently preparing "a directive concerning education against racism, xenophobia, and intolerance." It is unclear how this directive will differ from the 1995 version, which simply asks of schools and educators to teach about tolerance without any accountability. Let us hope the initiative goes beyond a directive in outlining a strategy for teacher training and support and in setting some specific, measurable goals. Education countering the power of hate ideology is of crucial importance now.
Of course, one key way of preventing extremism, aside from discussing and taking a strong stance against it outright with students, is through dismantling divisions and prejudice between groups from an early age. In the Czech Republic, where segregation in education is a serious problem affecting the Roma, more of an effort must be made to make schools inclusive and to retain Romani students and teaching assistants in mainstream classrooms.
"Exclusion of Romani students from mainstream classrooms and their education in segregated schools in Romani communities," states the Czech Government Approach toward Roma Integration for the Years 2010-2013, "make experiencing contact impossible for other students, thereby endangering their readiness for peaceful coexistence in the future. Segregation elevates the risk of mistrust, spread of prejudice and xenophobia between the two groups."
***
[This post originally appeared on Tereza Bottman's Advocacy Project blog]
The annual report of the human rights group, Czech Helsinki Commitee, cites as one of the primary issues facing the Czech Republic, "the increasing radicalization of neo-Nazis and violent attacks against the Roma population." An example of this is an April 2009 arson attack on a Roma family, which resulted in a two-year-old girl suffering severe burns to 80 percent of her body. The perpetrators of the attack are associated with a far-right group and are currently on trial.
In light of this alarming trend, what kinds of efforts are Czech institutions undertaking, specifically in the field of education (a later post will focus on violence prevention via the criminal justice system), to curb the appeal of hate group ideology to economically struggling whites?
In response to the growth of the neo-Nazi movement, and with the intention of steering young people away from the dangers of the ideology of hate, Varianty, an educational program of the human rights organization People in Need, created a booklet for teachers to use in the classroom. The booklet is available online and in CD-form to be ordered for free by schools. The organization is, according to the news service iDnes, currently out of funds to provide printed copies of the text.
The approximately two-hundred-page long booklet, "The Threat of Neo-Nazism, Democratic Opportunities", describes the history of homegrown right-wing extremism. The text, developed in cooperation with the police unit specializing in monitoring extremist activity, also contains pictures of neo-Nazis and their insignia as well as topics for facilitated discussions. The most controversial aspect of the booklet is the inclusion of passages from hate group literature. The authors, however, argue that such information is widely available to those students who choose to seek it out and that examining it critically is crucial.
In the booklet, teachers are provided with guidelines on how to present and analyze the materials with their students. However, the reality is that many educators are still unsure about how to approach the subjects of extremism and racism, and as a result steer away from providing their students with the opportunity to examine hate group ideology critically. Clearly, instructors need more tools and support on how to implement such ambitious programs in their classrooms. Additionally, there needs to be a system-wide effort to infuse public school curriculum with anti-bias education.
According to the press agency iDnes, the Czech Ministry of Education is currently preparing "a directive concerning education against racism, xenophobia, and intolerance." It is unclear how this directive will differ from the 1995 version, which simply asks of schools and educators to teach about tolerance without any accountability. Let us hope the initiative goes beyond a directive in outlining a strategy for teacher training and support and in setting some specific, measurable goals. Education countering the power of hate ideology is of crucial importance now.
Of course, one key way of preventing extremism, aside from discussing and taking a strong stance against it outright with students, is through dismantling divisions and prejudice between groups from an early age. In the Czech Republic, where segregation in education is a serious problem affecting the Roma, more of an effort must be made to make schools inclusive and to retain Romani students and teaching assistants in mainstream classrooms.
"Exclusion of Romani students from mainstream classrooms and their education in segregated schools in Romani communities," states the Czech Government Approach toward Roma Integration for the Years 2010-2013, "make experiencing contact impossible for other students, thereby endangering their readiness for peaceful coexistence in the future. Segregation elevates the risk of mistrust, spread of prejudice and xenophobia between the two groups."
***
[This post originally appeared on Tereza Bottman's Advocacy Project blog]
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