Project: Roma in Serbia: How safe they feel and do they see improvements?

02Apr2014

The Public Policy Research Centre has presented the preliminary report on the research conducted within the project “Vulnerable Groups and Security Sector Reform: Roma Population and Security Sector in Serbia”. The round table organised in cooperation with the  Democratisation Department of the OSCE Mission to Serbia, on April 2, gathered about 40 participants. Among them were the representatives of the  Ministry of Interior (MoI) i.e police departments  from Subotica,  Nis, Vranje, Bujanovac, Prokuplje, Kragujevac and Belgrade, the Ministry of Defense (MoD), the Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Unit of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, the Ombudsperson’s Office, the Office for Human and Minority Rights, the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Policy, the National Council of the Roma National Minority, Roma organizations and associations, NGOs specialized in the fields of security or inclusion, and independent experts. The round table was by invitation only, closed to public.

In line with the Centre’s conceptual focus on vulnerable minority groups position in the context of the Security Sector Reform and Human Security, the Centre’s research team organized 9 group discussions (focus groups) with the Roma men and women in 6 municipalities and cities, and conducted 20 interviews with the representatives of the MoI - primarily police officers involved in the Community Policing, the leaders of the Roma NGOs, and municipal coordinators for the Roma issues. The draft also relied on data gathered from the MoD, and included desktop research, as well as communication with experts involved in several ongoing projects concerning the improvement of the Roma community’s possition and the support for reforms related to policing.

The Preliminary Findings indicate that Roma population perceives security threats differently, depending on the local contexts and level of social inclusion. Second,  municipalities which received the considerable inflow of internally displaced persons from Kosovo and Metohija showed different type of tolerance toward domestic Roma population that are characterised by high level of integration within the local community, and displaced Roma that are still facing problems with the lack of personal documents and other basic issues. The questions of personal security assessment and security of the community are gender influenced. Roma women are mainly concerned for their children upbringing and the threats related to it, such as peer-to-peer violence and bullying in schools, as well as with domestic gender based violence. Women also share the consequences of the local context and notify other security threats observed by men.  

According to the focus group respondents, the key threats as perceived by Roma population are the unfavorable socio economic status, i.e the level of unemployment, lack of personal documents, and the derived problems in claiming certain rights and benefits, such as access to healthcare and social security service. However, in cases where Roma population was faced with violence and the threat of violence, the order of security threats changed, likewise the way the police work was observed, and the threat of violence became the primary issue of concern for the minority.

The discussion following the presentation of the preliminary results, mainly focused on the issues of the qualitative methodology applied in this research, and its limits, and  some details regarding the concrete police actions in the case of security threats toward Roma population in certain municipalities. The comments and the suggestions are to be implemented in the final version of the research paper. 

This project is supported by the Democratisation Department of the OSCE Mission to Serbia, within the project Consolidating the Democratisation Process in the Security Sector in Serbia which is supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.  Publication of the final research paper will be followed with public promotions in three different Serbian cities, during May 2014.

Images:

1.  Roma without personal documents

2. Jelena Radoman, main researcher for the project

3. Nada Jaramaz, the  Democratisation Department of the OSCE Mission to Serbia, Karin Wagner the  Democratisation Department of the OSCE Mission to Serbia, Svetlana Đurđević Lukić,the Centre's President, Miroslav Kragić the  Democratisation Department of the OSCE Mission to Serbia

4. More than 40 participants at the round table

Photos 2.3. and 4 courtesy of OSCE Mission in Serbia