Third session of the United Nations Forum on Minority Issues Jan Jařab, Regional Representative for Europe, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Independent Expert on Minority Issues, Ms. Gay McDougall Ladies and Gentlemen, The Regional Office for Europe of the United Nations High Commissioner for Europe has identified the Roma issue as one of the most important human rights challenges in Europe today. The people who are commonly identified as Roma represent a group of minorities (or, according to some views, one large minority) in a number of European States, with the greatest numbers being in Central and Eastern Europe. Unfortunately there is a lack of data on how many Roma there actually are: some widely circulated estimates might be found exaggerated, but they certainly number in the millions, in other words more than the population of quite a few European States. The Roma are a heterogeneous group of people - in terms of self-identification, descent, language and way of life. In fact, both in policy documents and in the rhetoric of the Roma movement, the term “Roma” is used as having the same scope as the initially broader terms “Gypsy” or “tsigane”. These broader terms, or else their equivalents in national languages, are now increasingly (though not universally) perceived as pejorative, and they include peoples such as the Spanish Gitanos, the Sinti, Ashkali and so-called “Egyptians”, as well as the Irish Travellers, French Gens de Voyage and other groups. A note of caution is necessary, however, because most of these people do not self-identify as Roma. Contrary to widespread perceptions, most of today’s Roma have long been sedentary, although their ancestors may have been nomadic. In Western Europe, there are relatively small populations of “travelling” peoples who are culturally related to the Roma – Gens de Voyage, Irish Travellers etc., while far larger numbers of Roma in Central and Eastern Europe are sedentary, either rural or urban dwellers. Recent appearances of larger groups of East European Roma in Western Europe should not be ascribed to alleged “nomadism”: most of them are previously sedentary people who have become migrants for similar reasons as migrants from non-European countries (being driven out by poverty, lack of opportunities, discrimination).