Ladies and gentleman,

I use the opportunity to inform you that Macedonia is doing giant steps to approach European Union. As a candidate country since 2005, the government of Macedonia is making efforts to address the problems of corruption, introduces police and judiciary reforms, and many other social and economic reforms in order to accelerate its road towards EU. The implementation of Romani policies is also progressing well, especially within the Decade frame, where Macedonia has moved from 7th to 3rd place, out of nine countries. One of the supporting arguments for this is that if you visit Macedonia you will not see children and women begging on the streets.
Recently the Law on begging is adopted according to which begging is banned. Majority of the population in Macedonia is now living in peace and security because they are protected with law from beggars. After the law was adopted social workers with police support started action of picking up the beggars from the streets and other public places, mainly children and women. The parents are taken to police station and interviewed (for 12 hours) while children are separated from their parents and accommodated in daily shelter centers.
Few days later the minister of interior affairs was taken photo in one daily newspaper together Roma children with message that they already are able to read and write. Can you believe this?

The first and obvious impression is that the law is specially made to remove Roma from the streets, because they are the bad image in front of many internationals visiting Macedonia. Either the law is trying to solve this phenomenon in general and do not explicitly mention Roma, generally has implication and violate the freedom rights, rights of the children, right for free movement according to the international treaties.
From domestic legislation the actions done under this law are violating the articles 34, 47 of the Law on police, article 3 of Criminal procedure, articles 88, 89, 90 and 93 of the Law for family, article 24, 35 and 36 of the Law on violation of public order and peace.

I am asking myself and also the audience here, is it useful that I recall on all this
law articles. Can I say to poor women and child that they have rights according many domestic and international laws and treaties? The answer is very simple no, because even more educated and well situated persons can’t use and know all this rules and procedures on their personal rights. We are here to discuss the implementation of OSCE AP and other Romani related policies. Is there any logic to do it, when the children are divided from their parents, mothers stay hungry at improvised houses, while the head of family how has to pay a penalty because of being beggar?

Regretfully, all Romani political parties are in ruling coalition with the government. Now is easier to OSCE and other internationals to justify the discriminatory actions within our system, because our political leaders are part of the decision making process. We as an NGO activist have also responsibility for the situation because we participated in planning phase on Decade AP, OSCE AP, National strategies for Roma.
We accepted all standards and democratic tools that majority have in our society. We started to speak the same language as the state administration, to be sophisticated in behavior and action, just to enter the standards of partners or state institutions with aim to be understood. But that is not happening, because the knowledge on Roma by the institutions is slowly progressing, while we have to live with the problems of the own community and balance between.

On the main question of this session “how to move on” I don’t have any critics
or recommendation to OSCE or international structures. The main message is going to Romani leaders and activist that we should consider to change our approach in self organizing.
We already entered the doors of controlled integration, where small group is
having the benefit of doing the job for the governments. Some ten years ago we’ve been excluded from all stages of policy cycle, and today we are part of it, but with very modest role and influence on the needed steps toward the real change we expect. We need a meaningful participation at all stages. If you ask me or yourself what that means, it is hard to find easy answer because this is once again gadzikano language we use it. We, as a nation who walked all the deserts and mountains around the globe, have to conclude that gadzikane theories are not functioning for Roma. It is time to work on our own and new
approach how to deal with or create new theories, institutions, mobilize funds and create recognized leaders among us in order to develop collective dimension and approach.