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Roma Children access to local government services in Albania APRIL 2017 Roma Children access to local government services in Albania PREPARED BY: ALTIN HAZIZAJ APRIL 2017 1 © CRCA Albania, Tirana 2017 Reproduction of parts of this document is authorised, except for commercial purposes, provided that the source is clearly acknowledged. This document has been commissioned by CRCA on behalf of UNICEF, CRCA, YWCA and OCR; however, it reflects only the views of the author. The organisations and donors cannot be held in any way responsible for any use, which may be made of the information contained therein. More information on the Initiative “Every Roma Child in Kindergarten” is available on the Internet (http://www.crca.al/every-roma-child-kindergarten). Authors: Altin Hazizaj Statistician: Pranvera Elezi Reference: Hazizaj A., Access to Local Social Services of Roma Children in Albania, UNICEF / CRCA Albania/ YWCA / Observatory, Tirana 2017. This study is part of the “Every Roma child in kindergarten project”, supported technically and financially by UNICEF and with the financial support of the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC): Photo (cover): © CRCA Albania Tirana / Albania 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 5 Major findings of the assessment 8 List of recommendations 9 CONTENTS 8 List of Acronyms 8 List of Tables and Graphs 9 Chapter 1: MUNICIPALITIES AND LOCAL SERVICES FOR ROMA CHILDREN 11 Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY 15 Assessment objectives Typology Instrument and data collection Sample Ethical aspects Limitations Chapter 3: RESULTS OF THE STUDY 19 Municipalities providing services for Roma children Access of Roma children and families in municipal services across Albania Attitudes towards Roma in municipalities in Albania Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 34 Findings and conclusions of the assessment Recommendations BIBLIOGRAPHY: 39 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS CRCA Albania would like to acknowledge the support of UNICEF, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) for funding the initiative “Every Roma Child in Kindergarten”, a national initiative that aims to enrol Roma children in early childhood education and consequently basic education. We would like to acknowledge the efforts that the author, interviewers and all the participants of the study had to undertake to make this study possible. Special thanks go to Altin Hazizaj, that authored this survey report and Ms. Pranvera Elezi, our independent statistician, which provides us with a good knowledge on the issues and concerns that we need to take into consideration when working for Roma children at the level of Municipalities. We would like also to acknowledge the contribution of the senior and experts staff of every Municipality across Albania to provide information based on our questionnaire in relation to the access of Roma children and their families to municipal services. We would like to thank you the staff and experts of CRCA, OCR and YWCA teams respectively for making it possible the data collection. We hope that this modest report serves also to the Government of Albania, Municipalities and CSO’s to get a better understanding of the barriers Roma children and their families face when they access public services at municipality level. 4 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Being a Roma child in Albania it’s not easy. Despite many improvements in terms of legislation and policies at local and national level, poverty, social exclusion and discrimination are a daily feature of many Roma children’s lives. On one side a Roma child needs to survive in what is described extremely poor living conditions. The majority of Roma families and children live in huts without access to electricity, water, toilette and warm environment at home. Contrary to public perceptions, most of the Roma families do not leave a mobile life. For centuries, they have established themselves in the largest urban areas of Albania living mainly in the peripheries of cities and towns and working in family informal businesses such as recycling, artisanal work and resale of old clothes. In recent years thanks to the support of many Roma intellectuals, activists and NGOs, a higher number of Roma youth is graduating from Universities, establishing a new wave of Roma movement aiming for equality in the public sphere and elimination of discrimination. Yet, the scale of poverty of Roma children and their families is an evidence of years of social exclusion and lack of programmes to support the most vulnerable groups in society with affordable housing, food, health and social services support. The economic development of Albania has yet to reach Roma families that more often than not find themselves with very little means to enjoy their rights. For the last 10 years, the Government of Albania has put the Roma issue at the centre of its public policy. The social inclusion policy, many social care laws or poverty programmes have included Roma families as one of the main beneficiaries. Yet, as this survey will show, the implementation of such frameworks has not elevated Roma people out of poverty, as the national policy was not translated in a budgeted national programme to increase the opportunities for employment and further education of Roma people. Social exclusion, segregation and societal discrimination of Roma was of such a scale that the national policies were unable to bring a change for years to the daily lives of children and their families. Lack of local government policies and especially dedicated budgets, poverty of other larger groups of society, made it almost impossible to achieve any degree of success in many Municipalities. The new territorial and administrative reform of 2015 and the elections that followed, with a mounting pressure of national and international communities, have finally started to influence the outcomes of the government policies. Many surveys and studies have shown the transformative impact that education is having on Roma children’s lives and their families. Recent data from civil society organisations and authorities is telling us that an ever-larger number of Roma children is attending kindergartens and basic education in Albania, despite discrimination that some of the Roma children face from white parents. Yet, once Roma children, especially girls, reach the age of puberty, cultural factors and their physical security, influences the parent’s decision to drop children out of school. Lack of enforcement of laws it means that there is no follow up from the authorities to make mandatory education (up to 15-16 years old) obligatory for all the families, despite of their practices or traditions. The study took place within the framework of the Programme “Every Roma Child in Kindergarten1”, a joint action of UNICEF Albania in cooperation with CRCA Albania, YWCA and OCR, funded respectively by Swiss Cooperation and Austrian Office for Cooperation and Development. We used quantitative methods to gather data on areas of early childhood education and development in areas where Roma children and families live or reside across Albania. The aim of this research-survey was to measure the perceptions, attitudes and level of services provided by local government units for Roma children and their families in Albania. We looked 1 The action is translated in Romani Language as “Sarkon Romale Maksemenge to Kopshti”. 5 to identify how (if any) personal and institutional factors of public institutions play a role in the provision of local services to Roma children. Finally, by recognizing the barriers that may affect the services provision by public officials we aimed to capture a picture of the situation and the level of delivery of local services to Roma people. The study at its last chapter shares a list of findings and recommendations for policy and advocacy work, which are very important to policymakers at local and national level in Albania. A lot remains to be done to achieve a real and meaningful equality and access to public services for every Roma child and family in Albania. It is an action that must encompass the government, society and Roma people together in order to achieve such a goal. MAJOR FINDINGS Roma people for the last decade have been at the centre of public policy at national and international level. The Parliament and the Government have invested to the reduction of poverty and social exclusion of Roma people from the social and economic life of the country. Yet very few Roma children finish their mandatory education, while many families continue to live in poverty and not being able to benefit from the development of the country compared to the rest of the population. - Roma complain or visit the premises of the municipalities to fulfil their most basic survival rights such as food, shelter or aid. The assessment found that at least 93% of Roma families visit municipalities to ask or complain about economic aid (cash handouts), 75% of Roma families ask for shelter, while 60% for food vouchers and 43% ask for employment. - Further to this at least 40% of Roma families visit the municipalities on daily bases while another 38% of them weekly. Such high turnout of visits come from all the age groups of Roma communities, including children and young people, which shows that the communities where such families are a conglomerate of daily problems to secure the survival of their children and families. Yet it seems that the institutions and their structures seem not to be able to provide a sustainable solution to Roma families issues. - The assessment shows that despite the fact that more than 50% of the complains from Roma people is made directly to the Mayors and another 49% of them to the Social Services departments, yet municipal programmes to alleviate poverty, provide shelter, protection, education and preparation and access to employment, have not achieved the expected results. - At least 70% of the municipalities have a section or department dealing with Roma issues.

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