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Discrimination and the Roma community, 2015
6
4.
Granada.
Education.
Direct discrimination.
The parents of a Roma child enrolled in primary school in Granada
contacted the Department to report a possible case of school segregation and discriminatory treatment against
them and her son by the school. The parents did not want their son taken out of his class and put in another
group with only Roma children.
The parents requested a meeting with the head teachers who claimed that the boy was behind the rest of the
class academically and therefore needed support classes.
The parents considered this school segregation and felt discriminated against for being Roma.
The Department proposed informing the school inspectorate and letting them take the appropriate action but
the parents decided against that course of action.
5.
Almeria.
Education.
Direct discrimination.
A young Roma girl explained that she went to the secondary
school called Albaida de Almeria to register for a vocational training course in nursing. A few days later
she returned to request a copy of the list of students admitted on the course and when the secretary
saw her Roma surname she said “you’d be better off sticking with cleaning” in reference to her Roma
ethnic origin.
The young girl felt ashamed and embarrassed but didn’t know what to say. She did not file a complaint.
6.
Zaragoza.
Education.
Indirect discrimination.
A Roma woman contacted the Department to report possible
school segregation of Roma students at the school where her four-year-old was enrolled.
She told us that the director and head teacher had formed two groups of students, one with Roma and Moroc-
can children and the other with non-Roma and non-Moroccan children.
The Department contacted the school administration to verify if this was actually true and we were told some-
thing quite different.
After sending a complaint to the school inspectorate (at the request of the child’s parents), we sent a letter to
the regional department of justice of Aragon because in our view there were a number of important discrepan-
cies in the version we were given by the school administration. The school refused to give any direct answer to
the question of school segregation or the allegations made by the parents.
The justice department of Aragon informed us that they would contact the competent body to request the
information needed to shed light on the situation.
The case has not yet been resolved.
7.
Asturias.
Education.
Direct discrimination.
The Fundación Secretariado Gitano contacted the director of
a school in Oviedo to request use of school space for an activity (open doors day) that the Foundation was
planning for the morning of 27th June. We spoke to the director on the phone to explain what the activity was
about and she promised to call us back the next day after consulting with her administrative team and the rest
of the teachers. The next day we called back and she told us that she was not going to let us use school space
because “after discussing your request with the administrative team we decided not to let an organisation like
yours use school facilities because we are already very stigmatised. We have many Roma and immigrant stu-
dents and if we let you use the school, Spanish students will enrol elsewhere”.
Another case of prejudice towards Roma.