Europe

Roma communities throughout Europe face daily discrimination and serious violations of their rights to housing and land.

This includes discrimination in access to adequate housing, systematic segregation, and forced evictions.

Indeed, Roma communities often live in conditions that are glaringly inadequate: poor or dilapidated housing; lack of sanitation and sewage facilities; cramped living quarters; segregated locations far from accessible education and employment opportunities; and lack of clean water, electricity and emergency services.

The Roma are often segregated from wider society – effectively ‘ghettoised’, and Roma people often are forced to live in conditions that are not legally sanctioned. Consequently, they also face an increased risk of forced eviction and displacement.

• In Bulgaria, large numbers of Roma reside in informal settlements with poor services and high tenure insecurity, with forced evictions on the increase. When Roma in Bulgaria try to regularise their living conditions through legislation, they are often arbitrarily denied this opportunity. 
• In Slovakia, Roma face extremely high levels of discrimination in access to housing, including systematic segregation, forced eviction and very poor access to water, sanitation and electricity. A pattern of segregation has emerged as authorities use different methods to move Roma into single apartment blocks away from the city centre, and cuts and restrictions on social benefits have only compounded this situation.