Download or read book Civil Society Monitoring Report on Implementation of the National Roma Integration Strategy in Italy written by Donatella De Vito and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After more than six years from the launch of the National Strategy for Roma Inclusion (NRIS), no real improvements can be seen regarding Roma inclusion. Despite isolated progress in some regions, many problems still persist even after the NRIS implementation, and it appears to be difficult to solve them without a radical change of direction in respect to what has been done so far. The limited powers that the National Office against Racial Discrimination (UNAR) has to ensure the implementation of the NRIS at the local level, together with a poor capacity to coordinate actions among different institutional levels, have negatively impacted the development of Local Action Plans for Roma inclusion. At local level, everything is left at the discretion of the local authorities, that have powers to decide whether and how to put it into action. As a result, only 11 regions out of 20 have set up the consultative meetings for agreeing on how to implement the NRIS at local level. Only one region, Emilia Romagna, has promoted and approved a regional law aimed at closing the Roma municipal camps and implemented actions aimed at supporting RSC housing and social inclusion. It must be reported that there are several regional and local authorities that not only do not implement the NRIS, but even deny it, keeping on maintaining - or even opening - new mono-ethnic residential areas and camps. Moreover, the delay in the implementation of the NRIS in the two regions in which RSC presence and exclusion is higher, such as Lazio (22 per cent) and Lombardy (11 per cent), is particularly significant. In Lazio, the regional consultations started only in 2015, while in Lombardy it has not even been organized yet. Stigmatization and the use of rooted stereotypes in the public speech about Roma are on the rise, as a consequence of the increased radicalization and extremism shown by Lega Nord and Five Star Movement Government. It is urgent to promote actions aimed at making public authorities distance themselves from racist and xenophobic discourse that targets Roma and effectively criminalise anti-Roma rhetoric, hate speech and hate crime. As a consequence of this situation, the human rights of thousands of Roma continue to be violated, particularly in the area of housing, as segregated camps, discrimination in access to social housing and forced evictions remain a daily reality for the Roma living in camps in Italy. As underlined in this report, the living conditions in camps are often inadequate, failing to meet international human rights standards and even the national regulations on housing. While the NRIS promised to "overcome camps", stating that "the liberation from the camp as a place of relational and physical degradation of families and people of Romani origin, and their relocation to decent housing, is possible",6 very little action has been taken by the authorities to this end. The "National working group on housing", established by the Strategy to address discrimination in access to housing, has never been organised, and no national plans have been planned or implemented to provide for the process of desegregation from camps that was foreseen by the NRIS. Despite the fact that the Strategy acknowledged the "excessive use" of evictions of informal settlements, and how these were "substantially inadequate" to address the housing situation of Roma, Italy has continued to evict Roma from informal camps, without the necessary safeguards such as consultation, adequate notice and others, in violation of the country's international and regional human rights obligations and in contrast to other forms of evictions carried out in Italy. When evicted, Roma families are often not provided with adequate housing alternatives, and they are instead often made homeless or placed into ethnically segregated camps or temporary accommodation. Roma are also sometimes forcibly evicted from authorized camps, when authorities decide to close them down, even if authorities do not offer inhabitants adequate alternatives, like in the Camping River Case, that is analysed in this report.
