INSOC 5. In a number of Roma communities, physical movement of the women is restricted to their homes or neighbourhoods. Employment measures for Romani women should take this into account and as a first stage offer economic activities close to or in their homes and neighbourhoods, and gradually make Romani women more comfortable to move outside for economic purposes. Second specificity also widely known is the low level of education of Romani women that is important barrier to their employment. In this sense: 1. The low level of education does not necessarily mean that educational activities must precede employment ones, as this might discourage Romani women to take part because they might not be able to see the benefit that will come later on. In such case it would be good if the education activities are parallel to the employment activities and they actually respond to the emerging education needs of Romani women in relation to their economic activity. 2. In most of the cases, Romani women are not responsible for the family budget and rarely have meaningful contact with money. But employment efforts for Romani women don’t make sense if they are not aiming at economic emancipation. Therefore, employment measures for Romani women should also be accompanied with fiscal literacy activities enabling them to understand and manage money and make their own fiscal decisions. Any measure for economic emancipation of Romani women must also work with Romani man in order to make sure that Romani women are allowed to manage their own money. 3. Although there is lack of education, Romani women have some knowledge, skills or abilities, which might be attractive to the labour market, but are unknown as Romani women are simply invisible. Employment measures for Romani women might consider first of all assessing the working skills and abilities in order to use these as a starting point, which would also make Romani women more comfortable to get engaged in employment measures. Of course, this should be further built on in order to achieve full and effective inclusion of Romani women into the labour market. 4. Learning abilities of Romani women are also limited, thus, what Romani women need to learn within the employment measures, be that skills and knowledge related to the job, or some general things (such as working with a bank account), should not only be communicated in a way understandable for them – verbal instructions are usually insufficient. Additional help should be provided, including doing those things with them several times until they grasp the knowledge and skills. Language and information spreading barriers form another set of considerations in regards to designing and implementing employment measures for Romani women. There are cases when Romani women know more than one language, and this could be used as an asset in the labour market. More often however, Romani women have limited language skills, thus any communication within the employment measures and the emerging economic activities should be linguistically adjusted. Moreover, standard information sharing channels, such as letters, TV, announcements on boards and so on, might not work and alternative channels should be sought, such as verbal communication in an informal setting. At the end, a word about social benefits and social contributions related to job. Employment measures should not automatically make Romani women ineligible for social benefits and at the same time impose the obligation of paying social contributions. It is important that employment measures first of all make sure that Romani women have gained sustainable income sufficient for dignified life before cutting social benefits and imposing taxes. The main message from all of this is that if the authorities are to undertake employment measures for Romani women, as they should, they have to get closer to the community and get to know it and involve Romani women from design to evaluation. Thank you Madam Chair. pg. 2 of 2 Aleksandra Bojadjieva