Roma Belong - Statelessness, Discrimination and Marginalisation of Roma in Albania
08 June 2018
The report ‘Statelessness, Discrimination and Marginalisation of Roma in Albania’ set out to better understand the nexus between discrimination, statelessness and its consequences for Roma in Albania. The report drew on interviews with affected persons and key stakeholders, to identify and analyse the main contributing factors and consequences of (the risk of) statelessness.
There have been some underlying themes that have come out of the research.
Firstly, while the legal framework in Albania is largely non-discriminatory, pervasive negative stereotypes of Roma continue to undermine social and official attitudes towards Roma.
Furthermore, the legal framework itself is not equipped to address multiple discrimination, a key shortcoming given the various grounds on which Roma are likely to experience harassment, prejudice and disadvantage.
Closely connected to the theme of discrimination, is that of access to justice. Roma face significant challenges accessing justice in Albania, and Roma who are denied nationality and documentation struggle to seek legal redress.
A third challenge relates to the gap between Albania’s legal framework (including its international obligations which have the force of law) and the bureaucracy that is mandated to implement the law and guarantee rights. A burdensome bureaucracy disproportionately disadvantage Roma, and heightens the barriers to documentation and birth registration faced by them putting also future generations at risk of statelessness.
A fourth challenge relates to the paucity of data related to both statelessness and Roma populations. This lack of data is symptomatic of the invisibility that accompanies structural discrimination and exacerbates the problem, making it more difficult to plan a suitable policy response, and makes it easier to deny the scale or seriousness of the issue.
These common themes point both to specific challenges of discrimination faced by Roma communities and individuals, and a more general bureaucratic challenge to effective governance and human rights in Albania. Importantly, addressing these structural issues would benefit not only Roma, but society as a whole.
