This report details problems in the Ukrainian state care system for Romani children, both before and after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation in February 2022. The research was based on research conducted by the ERRC which includes a series of interviews with Romani families, civil society activists, and representatives of children’s services, as well as high-ranking officials.

This report is a summary and analysis of monitoring and reporting carried out by the ERRC’s ‘Roma Rights Defenders’ volunteer section in Albania, Serbia, Turkey, and Ukraine between November 2020 and August 2021. It contains data from reporting activities the volunteer researchers carried out using report functions embedded within major social media networks, as well as analysis by ERRC staff and volunteer coordinators on the online hate speech profile of each country. It is likely the first data-driven picture of online hate speech specifically targeted against Roma in Europe.

This monitoring report is a record of human rights violations against Romani refugees from Ukraine in the year following the Russian invasion on the 24th February. In the aftermath of the opening of full-scale hostilities, the ERRC and partners mobilised human rights monitoring teams inside Ukraine and several of the countries bordering (the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova). We are also grateful to activists working in Poland who’s important work we have quoted in this report to provide a more complete picture of discrimination faced by Romani refugees from Ukraine across Europe.

This report on Roma in the criminal justice system of Serbia is one part of an ongoing series of country reports produced by the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) in partnership with Fair Trials, which examines the impact of anti-Roma racism on the workings of the criminal justice systems.