This week in Kyiv, a roundtable discussion was held on an important and acute issue – the documentation of the Roma community in Ukraine. The event was organized by the Council of Europe in Ukraine in partnership with the Office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights.
The participants of the meeting gathered to see presentations of the results of the ongoing pilot projects and to find ways to solve the problems that remain in the field of registration and identification of Ukrainian Roma and Sinti. Julian Kondur, project manager of the Roma Women’s Fund “Chirikli”, also joined the discussion.
During the event, the organizers and participants discussed the situation in Zakarpattia and Odesa regions, where a significant number of Roma do not have identity documents. This limits their access to rights and services. In particular, the situation has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and has become even more complicated during the full-scale war.
As a result, undocumented Roma families had difficulty accessing humanitarian assistance and were forced to move to neighboring countries as refugees when the situation worsened.
In response to these challenges, the Council of Europe supported the initiative of the Ombudsperson to pilot a simplified document registration procedure in Mukachevo, Zakarpattia region. The process involved the State Migration Service of Ukraine, UNHCR and the Roma NGO Chirikli.
At the end of the roundtable, the organizers and participants expressed their hope that the joint and coordinated work of all institutions, agencies and civil society organizations will lead to tangible improvements in the Roma registration process and, ultimately, will help ensure better access to services and rights for the Roma population throughout Ukraine.
