The state institutions haven’t made sufficient efforts to employ Roma community mediators. In 2016-2020, there were to be hired 54 community mediators, but only 40 were employed and this was done primarily with the support of the Coalition “Voice of the Roma”. The data were presented in a news conference at IPN.
Valeriu Căldăraru, a member of the Secretariat of the Coalition “Voice of the Roma”, said some of the representatives of the local public administration are unwilling to employ Romanies at the mayor’s office. The mayor of Strășeni said that if the community mediator is employed, this will work remotely, not at the mayor’s office. This is discrimination,” stated Valeriu Căldăraru.
In Orhei town, the representatives of the local public authorities told Valeriu Căldăraru that under internal regulations of the mayor’s office, all the employees must have higher education, but the framework regulations on the activity of community mediators provide that a community mediator can have secondary education, which is nine completed grades.
The Roma also do not hurry to become employed as community mediators given the very low salary paid by the state for this post.
Elena Sârbu, of the Coalition “Voice of the Roma”, who monitored how the action plan for supporting the Roma population for 2016-2020 was implemented in the health sector, said some of the villages that are compactly inhabited by Romanies, such as Schinoasa, Ursari and Parcani of Călărași district, do not have access to drinking water. The inhabitants of these three villages cannot follow the recommendation to wash the hands more often in times of a pandemic. In Schinoasa, there is no family doctor’s office. The Coalition “Voice of the Roma”, on whose insistence the building of the medical unit started, asks to hasten the implementation of this project.
In another development, the representative of the Coalition “Voice of the Roma” expressed her regret at the fact that the media broadcast information about the Roma community that places it in an unfavorable light only. “The Roma don’t wait to be shown on TV only on the Sunday of the Dead or on the occasion of shows. They want equity to be ensured when the situation of the Roma is covered as many of them live in poverty too,” stated Elena Sârbu.
The news conference forms part of the series of conferences held in the framework of IPN’s project “Exposing Injustice through Multimedia”. IPN Agency does not undertake to decide if the organizers of news conferences are right in the cases about which they will speak as this is the exclusive prerogative of justice, but the exaggeratedly long examination period of these cases, which is much longer than the law allows, can be considered an act of evident unfairness and injustice. IPN News Agency does not bear responsibility for the public statements made in the public sphere by the organizers of news conferences.
