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Discrimination and the Roma Community 2014
14.
Sabadell.
Dignity.
Direct discrimination.
The ACCEDER office in Sabadell organised a certificate course in
basic restaurant and bar operations in collaboration with SOC (Employment Service of Catalonia).
As a general rule, the SOC announces these training sessions taking place in Catalonia on their web page and this
was the case with our training session. People interested in the training called the Sabadell Economic Promotion
Service for information as this was the institution in charge of providing the training.
On the day of the course a girl called requesting information. A member of the staff informed her that the trai-
ning session had already begun and that, in any case, priority was given to Roma participants since the Fundación
Secretariado Gitano was co-funder and co-organiser.
That sparked the following comment: “It’s always the same. Everything is for the fucking Gypsies who don’t
even want to work.” She then slammed down the phone.
15.
Sabadell.
Dignity.
Direct discrimination.
A North African man and a Roma man were victims of discrimination
at a shop where they went for an interview for a training session.
The two young men were looking at clothes and noticed that the cashier said something to the security guard
who stopped them at the door and wanted to frisk them.
When they refused, he told them they had to go with him to a private office. They refused that as well and then
lifted their shirts to show that they were not hiding anything.
They then left the shop.
The young men felt discriminated against and believed that the guard considered them suspects because of
their physical appearance (ethnic characteristics) and not because he had any real suspicion that they had stolen
anything.
16.
Valencia.
Dignity.
Direct discrimination.
A woman who had recently taken part in the Acceder Programme
told the FSG counsellor that she wanted access to the details she provided at a guidance appointment because
she didn’t believe they were going to help her because she is non-Roma. The counsellor (not the same one who
spoke with her at her previous appointment) explained that this was not true and that only a certain percentage
of non-Roma should be allowed to take part in the programme since we are an organisation catering mainly to
the Roma population. We explained that once a person was admitted into the programme, Roma and non-Roma
were treated exactly the same.
The woman made a series of discriminatory comments such as: “in this country, all the help goes to Gypsies
and immigrants”, “Gypsies hang out all day long eating sunflower seeds”, “aid is given to Gypsies and the non-
Gypsies, those that made this country what it is, are dying of hunger”, etc.
The staff members tried to refute her discriminatory comments against Roma and immigrants one by one and
explained to her that she herself was being discriminatory and that there were close to 12000 Roma in Alicante
and obviously not all were the same and that she was generalising specific cases and applying them to an entire
community. She concluded with a very unpleasant comment: “All the Gypsies from Alicante should go and live
in Tabarca” (a small island off the coast of Alicante).
17.
Madrid.
Dignity.
Direct discrimination.
A Roma woman claimed that her husband died due to negligence in
prison where he was not given the medicine he needed for his ailment.
We requested information from the medical file of that person at the prison, the same information that they
refused to give the wife and we were unsuccessful as well.
The wife continued with no response from the competent authorities from whom we requested information and,
in the end, decided to desist.