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The ERRC is releasing a series of videos exposing the grim situation Romani children face in state care systems across different EU countries.

Almost 60% of children in state care are Roma in Romania, while Roma represent only 8,3% of the population. This is a clear overrepresentation.

We are on a mission to end the scandal of state authorities stealing Romani kids and abandoning them in state care institutions. Our message is simple: poverty alone is not a sufficient reason to take Roma into care, and the institutions where Romani kids spend too much of their childhood should be closed down for good.

ROMA IN STATE CARE

We are releasing a series of videos exposing the grim situation Romani children face in state care systems across different EU countries.

In Hungary we spoke with ERRC lawyers who had just won a victory on behalf of Romani children who had been removed from their families in Nógrád County. The court’s judgment found that the Ministry of Human Capacities had violated the right to equal treatment for children who had been taken away from their families due to their financial situation, the majority of whom are Roma. The judge declared that families were discriminated against on the grounds of socio-economic status and poverty, as well as because of their Romani ethnicity. 

We also spoke to some Romani care leavers about their experience in the care system, and the abuses institutionalised children are forced to endure.

ROMA IN STATE CARE AT A GLANCE

A Bit of Background

Romani children are significantly overrepresented in state care in many European countries, where Roma often represent over 80% of all children in care. The ERRC has taken cases in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia and Albania to expose this systemic racism, at all levels of the care system and judiciary. We know Romani children are also being unfairly taken away from their parents in other countries. We want to make sure that this injustice is exposed and litigated against.

RESOURCES

In order to help activists, lawyers and Roma Rights defenders fight against illegal and discriminatory placement of Romani children in state care, we have collected together all of our research, articles, litigation documents and local partner information. All of the ERRC’s research into Roma in State Care, across countries where we work on this issue, is available in this section. You can also find information on litigation we have carried out, or aided, in fighting discrimination in state care.

Recycled Paper

We are releasing another video from the series exposing the grim situation Romani children face in state care systems across different EU countries.

Many Romani children in Bulgaria fall into the institutional care, because the country failed to provide good family environment – experts say.

The children from Romani families are often taken away based on a signal [report]. “In that sense, unfortunately, we come across cases which abuse abuse this signaling [reporting]”, - says Daniela Mihaylova, Chair of the Equal Opportunities Initiatives Association.

For years any children aged 3 and younger have been taken into institutional care in the Czech Republic. The majority of them are Roma. Michal Ďorď was one of them. He was taken into state care when he was only 8-months-old. He tells us his story of growing up in an institution and the childhood he, and his parents, missed out on.

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