12Nov2014

One in four Croatian Roma has no identity documents

A free legal assistance project has been launched in Croatia to determine the actual number of Croatian Roma who do not have identity documents in light of estimates saying that around 25% of the Roma community do not have such documents, heard a round table organised in Slavonski Brod on Wednesday by the local Legal Information Centre (IPC) and the UNHCR Office in Croatia.

The round table on the status of Roma in Croatia was held on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons.

"It is estimated that around 25% of the Roma population in Croatia have no identity documents. That is why the IPC in 2011 launched, with UNHCR's support, a project for free legal assistance to establish the actual situation on the ground," said the executive director of the IPC Slavonski Brod, Natasa Kovacevic, adding that two mobile teams, consisting of legal advisors and including Roma representatives, were working on the ground.

"They are identifying individual cases on the ground. The situation in Croatia is such that the Roma community is still not fully shaped, and it is not using the rights to which it is entitled under the relevant laws. That makes their social integration difficult," Kovacevic said.

According to the last, 2011 census, there are 16,975 Roma in Croatia. It is estimated that their actual number is between 30,000 and 40,000. The process of their social integration is considerably hampered by spatial segregation because they mostly live in isolated settlements on the outskirts of bigger cities. One such settlement, on the legalisation of which national and local authorities have been working for decades, is located in Slavonski Brod. According to the 2011 census, 1,100 Roma live in Slavonski Brod but according to unofficial estimates, the community has around 2,000 members.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has launched this year a global campaign to eliminate statelessness within 10 years. It is estimated that 60 million people worldwide are stateless.

Jasna Barbaric of the UNHCR Office in Zagreb said Croatia was expected to achieve that goal by 2020.

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