Indicator history

Precarious housing is a situation documented in various reports related to the Roma minority. Some Roma communities have been driven to extreme conditions by poverty and lack of opportunity, while others have been driven to such situations by forced evictions undertaken by authorities. A 2011, Amnesty International Report states: “In cases documented by Amnesty International, alternative housing provided to Romani families who had been forcibly evicted from their homes often fails to comply with standards included in international and national law. When alternative housing is offered by the authorities, it is often built in very precarious conditions and lacks basic facilities such as water, heating or electricity, in breach of even the minimum standards included in Romanian legislation. In recent years, Romani CRISS and other NGOs have documented a number of cases where Romani communities have been forcibly evicted and relocated next to garbage dumps, sewage treatment plants, or industrial areas on the outskirts of cities that could be hazardous for their health”. [1]

A news television presented in 2011 a documentary on the situation of such communities, “ghettoes”. The focus was however on poverty,  and not on the fact that the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of these most horrendous places are Roma. [2]

Sources:

1. Amnesty International, Mind the Legal Gap, Roma and the right to housing in Romania, June 2011, available at: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/EUR39/004/2011/en/5f9becde-66e9-4262-bb3a-ff1c3681046d/eur390042011en.pdf (last accessed: 19.02.2012)

2. Antena3, In premiera, 20.11.2011, available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_YFqoKlWdM (last accessed: 19.02.2012)