A/HRC/31/CRP.2 Roma communities in the region. The Special Rapporteur believes that the self-organizing and movement-building efforts of Roma activists in the region need to be assisted as these activists are currently rather dispersed and isolated in their struggles for their communities. 7. The present conference room paper provides an overview of the issues raised during the workshop and notes some of the overarching themes. It also presents a number of conclusions and makes recommendations based on the information received. 8. In the coming months, under the terms of her mandate, the Special Rapporteur will seek further direct communication with the relevant governments about many of the concerns raised during the workshop and in this paper, and seek their views on those concerns. She also hopes that the workshop, and this brief report thereon, will provide an impetus for national governments, international organizations and civil society organizations to pay more attention to the situation of Roma in the Americas. 9. The Special Rapporteur would like to warmly thank the United Nations in Brasilia for hosting the workshop. She would also like to thank Mr. Jorge Bernal of Asociación Identidad Romaní (AICRA) for assisting with the coordination of the meeting, and all the Roma representatives for their participation and for presenting their concerns and sharing their perspectives with her. II. Methodology 10. The 1992 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (Declaration on the Rights of Minorities) is a key instrument through which the situation of Roma in the Americas should be understood. In adopting the Declaration, United Nations Member States demonstrated their support for the Declaration’s call for affirmative and concerted action to promote and protect minorities through the four pillars of minority rights: (a) protection of a minority’s existence, including combating violence against them and preventing genocide; (b) protection and promotion of the identity of minority groups and their right to enjoy their collective identity and to reject forced assimilation; (c) a guarantee of the rights to nondiscrimination and equality, including the ending of structural or systemic discrimination and the promotion of affirmative action when required; and (d) the right to effective participation in public, political, social, economic and cultural life and in the decisions that affect them. These pillars should be instrumental for States seeking to better promote and protect the rights of Roma communities within their borders. 11. As the Special Rapporteur on minority issues notes in her Global Study on Roma, “The term ‘Roma’ refers to heterogeneous groups, the members of which live in various countries under different social, economic, cultural and other conditions”. 3 Therefore, the term as used in this report does not denote a specific group, but instead refers to diverse groups and subgroups which overlap but are united by common historical roots, linguistic communalities and a shared experience of discrimination in relation to majority groups. Roma is therefore a multidimensional description that corresponds to the fluid nature of Roma identity, in the Americas as elsewhere. 12. Regarding terminology, a majority of the Spanish and Portuguese speaking governments of the region refer to Roma peoples as Gitanos (Spanish) or Ciganos (Portuguese). However, some participants indicated that their preferred terminology in Spanish is ‘el pueblo Rom’. For the purposes of this report, the English term Roma is used. 3 4 See A/HRC/29/24, para. 2.