A/HRC/40/30
racially motivated violence against that community, and in particular against women and
children, its most vulnerable members. 14
28.
In her annual report (A/HRC/38/52), the Special Rapporteur on racism highlighted
that long-standing barriers in access to citizenship and naturalization in various countries
had contributed to the deep-rooted forms of discrimination and exclusion faced by Sinti and
Roma. Many members of the Roma and Sinti communities were stateless or faced the risk
of statelessness due to their lack of access to civil registration and identity documents.
Those barriers meant that statelessness was passed on from generation to generation, further
perpetuating their exclusion, discrimination and marginalization.
29.
The Human Rights Committee, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination and the Committee on the Rights of the Child made recommendations to
several States in relation to Roma communities, particularly concerning intolerance and
prejudice towards vulnerable and minority groups, including Roma, and the prevalence of
hate speech and hate crimes against those groups, including on the Internet. The
Committees also expressed concern over children in Roma communities. They
recommended that States strengthen their efforts to combat intolerance, stereotypes and
prejudice, and take measures to improve the reporting, investigation, prosecution and
punishment of hate crimes and criminal hate speech. 15 The Committee on the Rights of the
Child also recommended that States establish a system to track all cases involving child
marriage in Roma communities.16
D.
Minority youth
30.
In June 2018, in his report on youth and human rights (A/HRC/39/33), the High
Commissioner highlighted that existing participatory decision-making mechanisms should
be improved and new ones explored in order to offer the possibility to think beyond
traditional voting, and to make better use of information and communications technologies
to ensure the equal participation of young people. Those mechanisms should take into
account how intersecting forms of discrimination affected the ability of all young people to
participate, in particular young people belonging to minority groups.
31.
During the reporting period, some initiatives at the country level sought to promote
the rights of minority youth. For example, in May 2018, a youth educational club called
Synergy, from North Mitrovica, led a plenary activity as part of the project entitled “youth
as advocates of human rights and gender equality”, supported by the Human Rights Unit of
the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Over the course
of six months, Synergy delivered 20 workshops for approximately 200 high school and
university students from non-majority communities, aimed at raising their awareness of the
root causes and ramifications of different forms of violence.
32.
Also in May 2018, the second session of the Moldovan national youth forum on
minorities, organized by the Moldovan youth platform for inter-ethnic solidarity, with the
support of OHCHR, took place in Chisinau. It focused on the representation of minorities in
the mass media. Around 100 participants gathered for the event, including minority young
people from different regions of the country, non-governmental organizations (NGOs),
journalists from minority and majority communities, members of the Government and
Parliament and representatives of national human rights institutions. Participants made
recommendations to the Government, which included support for minority-led media; the
translation of websites of government institutions into minority languages; and the effective
monitoring and sanctioning of discriminatory and hate speech towards minorities, both
online and in the traditional mass media.
14
15
16
8
See www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23385&LangID=E.
See, for example, CCPR/C/LTU/CO/4, para. 8, CCPR/C/HUN/CO/6, para. 16 and
CERD/C/SWE/CO/22-23, para. 25.
See, for example, CRC/C/MNE/CO/2-3, para. 36.