The Roma Women Fund Chirikli has sent official information requests to regional military administrations and local self-government bodies in the regions covered by the project. This is the first step towards public monitoring of how state policy on the protection of the rights of national communities, including the Roma community, is being implemented.
The work is carried out within the project “Roma and National Minorities as Agents of Change in Ukraine”, supported by the International Renaissance Foundation.
Why monitoring begins on paper
An official information request is an underrated instrument. It obliges a public body to put in writing what usually exists only as verbal assurance: whether a local programme has been adopted, whether a centre is operating, how many people have used it.
A reply carries legal weight and a date. That is what makes it a usable basis for independent monitoring, while general statements about “attention to the issue” are not. A missing reply is also a result: it shows where the subject is simply not being handled.
What the fund is asking about
The requests concern how communities are implementing the Strategy for Promoting the Realisation of the Rights and Opportunities of Persons Belonging to the Roma National Minority. This is not an abstract question: the Strategy sets out specific measures and deadlines for which someone on the ground is responsible.
The second part of the requests is about equal access. Education, documentation, social services, participation in decision-making, cultural life and protection against discrimination: six areas in each of which formal availability and the actual ability to use a service can diverge considerably.
Centres of national minorities and local programmes
The fund is separately interested in the work of Centres of National Minorities (Communities) and in the implementation of local support programmes.
These are telling indicators. A centre that exists on paper without a budget and a centre that receives people every day look identical in reporting — the difference shows only in concrete figures and lists of activities. The questions are framed so that the answer cannot be reduced to “work is ongoing”.
Ten regions
The monitoring will cover the city of Kyiv, along with the Odesa, Chernihiv, Vinnytsia, Volyn, Zakarpattia, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Kirovohrad and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
The sample is deliberately mixed: it includes regions with large Roma communities and regions where national minorities are few. Comparing them will show whether the quality of the work depends on the size of the community — or on whether anyone at local level took it up.
What happens to the replies
The replies received will form the basis of independent public monitoring. Its task is to assess compliance with European standards on the protection of the rights of national minorities and the Roma community, identify gaps and formulate recommendations for state bodies and local self-government.
Ahead are the monitoring results and awareness activities. The fund will publish them separately.
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