Child protection is a rapidly developing field in human rights; in the last decades, both the practices and the international legal frameworks have substantially changed and an increasing number of civic initiatives concentrated on this topic became active. With the hope of stimulating an international debate on child protection systems and the position of Roma, this Roma Rights Quarterly is devoted to the topic of "Child Protection".

Stereotypes take on a life of their own once they emerge from Pandora's box. Distorted perceptions are mirrored onto ethnic and racial groups and inflict psychological wounds on individuals that are cast as belonging to those groups. The end result is collective marginalisation or collective oppression. This issue of Roma Rights explores the "perceptions" of Roma which are present in certain fields and societies.

This issue of Roma Rights takes a critical look at the current efforts to retool the nature of the welfare state across Europe, and how these efforts affect Europe's Romani population. The welfare state attempts to enact social justice for citizens by mitigating unfairness created by market economies through proactive social assistance schemes. In the past, these have consisted of unemployment benefits, public health care, and other social services.

The current issue of Roma Rights issue looks at the responses of Romani women to some of the human rights violations Romani women face. The Romani women's movement has evolved organically through the wider pursuit of Roma rights by Romani women and men over the years in response to the initial (and mostly continuing) lack of attention to women's issues on the part of the predominantly male "leaders"; some of whom viewed patriarchal traditions as integral components of Romani identity and culture.

This journal is dedicated not only to the evaluation of the ERRC today but also to the past decade of Roma rights – to see what we have achieved, where we stand, and what are the next steps to be taken. Things that happen in the course of advocating Roma rights are the same factually.

The massive and disproportionate exclusion of Roma from employment is an undisputed reality in many countries. This fact raises serious human rights concerns about the failure of governments to curb racial discrimination in employment as well as to undertake proactive measures to confront disadvantages facing Roma at the labour market.

Violence against Roma and others perceived as Gypsies in Kosovo after the end of the NATO bombing was part of a politically motivated systematic effort to “cleanse” Kosovo of non-Albanians and to bolster claims for an independent state. Almost seven years later perpetrators of crimes against humanity remain unpunished. Regarding “RAE” currently inside Kosovo, very few have returned to their empty and ruined neighbourhoods. Despite efforts by the international community to resettle “RAE” returnees, the lack of genuine peace has forced most of them to leave the province again.