SOCIAL EXCLUSION AT THE CROSSROADS OF GENDER, ETHNICITY AND CLASS A View through Romani Women's Reproductive Health Research paper with policy recommendations EXCLUDEREA SOCIALĂ LA INTERSECŢIA DINTRE GEN, ETNICITATE ŞI CLASĂ O privire din perspectiva sănătăţii reproducerii la femeile Rome Raport de cercetare şi recomandări privind politicile publice EFES Em. de Martonne street nr. 1, Cluj, Romania Director: Ion Cuceu SOCIAL EXCLUSION AT THE CROSSROADS OF GENDER, ETHNICITY AND CLASS A View through Romani Women's Reproductive Health Series coordinated by: Enikő Magyari-Vincze Copyediting and cover design by: Crina Sincovici Research paper with policy recommendations Această publicaţie a apărut cu sprijinul This volume was published with the support of the INTERNATIONAL POLICY FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM 2005-2006 ENIKŐ MAGYARI-VINCZE COLECŢIA STUDII CULTURALE ● 9 Îngrijită de EFES şi de Institutul de Antropologie Culturală din Cluj, îşi propune publicarea unor opere originale, traduceri, materiale didactice, lucrări de atelier şi conferinţe din domeniul antropologiei culturale, etnologiei Europene, studiilor de gen şi studiilor culturale. Ca atare doreşte să contribuie la instituţionalizarea acestor EXCLUDEREA SOCIALĂ LA discipline în România şi la prezentarea rezultatelor cercetărilor culturale şi sociale INTERSECŢIA DINTRE GEN, ETNICITATE ŞI CLASĂ desfăşurate în Europa de Est post-socialistă. O privire din perspectiva sănătăţii reproducerii la femeile Rome Raport de cercetare şi recomandări privind politicile publice CULTURAL ANALYSIS SERIES ● 9 Edited by EFES and the Institute for Cultural Anthropology, it publishes original works, translations, teaching materials and working papers on domains such as cultural anthropology, European ethnology, gender studies and cultural studies. As such it aims to have a contribution to the institutionalization of these disciplines in Romania and presents the results of the cultural and social researches pursued in the post-socialist Eastern Europe. © Enikő Magyari-Vincze, 2006 ISBN 10 973-7677-44-7 ISBN 13 978-973-7677-44-0 Printed in Cluj, Romania Editura Fundaţiei pentru Studii Europene Cluj, 2006 In the memory of my father whose early death coincided with the beginnings of this research În memoria tatălui meu, al cărui moarte timpurie s-a suprapus cu începuturile acestei cercetări Édesapám emlékére, akinek korai halála egybeesett e kutatás kezdeteivel TABLE OF CONTENTS Paper and research overview................................................................................................9 1. The conceptual framework of the primary research ...................................................11 1.1. Approaching reproduction and reproductive health .......................................11 1.2. Understanding social exclusion at the crossroads of gender, ethnicity and class....................................................................................................12 2. The conceptual framework of the policy research ......................................................14 2.1. Romani women’s reproductive health as human right ....................................14 2.2. The impact of (the lack of) reproductive rights on Romani women’s life ......17 2.3. The need of mainstreaming gender and ethnicity into public policies ...........18 3. Methodological concerns.................................................................................................19 4. Research results: between two fires, or mechanisms of multiple exclusions...........20 4.1. The socio-economic conditions of Roma communities......................................20 4.2. Romani women's conceptions, feelings and practices related to reproduction ...........................................................................................29 4.3. Health care providers' attitudes towards Romni................................................35 4.4. Roma policies. From gender-blindness to pro-natalist concerns .....................39 4.5. Reproductive health policies. From ethnic-blindness to racism.......................44 4.6. Roma women's organizing ....................................................................................49 5. Reproductive health of Romani women as a policy matter .......................................56 5.1. The policy problem .................................................................................................56 5.2. The context of the policy problem ........................................................................57 5.3. Policy recommendations........................................................................................58 5.3.1. Principles guiding my policy recommendations ......................................58 5.3.2. Expected results .............................................................................................58 5.3.3. Policy recommendations – general and specific .......................................59 6. Conclusions .......................................................................................................................63 6.1. Main research findings...........................................................................................63 6.1.1. Romani women's discrimination in the context of reproductive health care policies and services......................................63 6.1.2. Romani women's marginalization within the mainstream Roma policies and movement......................................................................65 6.1.3. Romani women's social exclusion on the base of their ethnicity, gender and social position............................................................................65 6.2. Representing Romani women's rights and entitlements...................................68 Additionally (Chapter 2), my research focused on reproductive health PAPER AND RESEARCH OVERVIEW as an issue of human rights considering that reproductive rights of women included the right to have access to reproductive health care information and services, the right to sexual education and bodily integrity, the right to decide This paper addresses the access of Romani women1 to reproductive on the number of children and the time-spacing of births, and the right to health as a socially, economically and culturally, but also politically decide on the contraceptive method most appropriate for their medical and determined phenomenon. It investigates it in the context of post-socialist social condition, but also the right to the enjoyment of sexuality as part of Romania as a problem through which one may have an understanding of the sexual health. My recommendations (presented in Chapter 5) are referring to broader issue of social exclusion as it functions under the circumstances of the need of mainstreaming ethnicity into the public health policy and of post-socialist transformations (Chapter 1). As such, it aims to have a mainstreaming gender into Roma policy in order to overcome the effects of contribution to theorizing on how exclusion works at the crossroads of ethnic and gender discrimination in relation to reproductive rights and access ethnicity, gender and class while (re)producing inequalities, and on how does to healthcare of Romni. The ethnicization and gendering of public policies Romani women's multiple discriminations function turning them into one of must rely on the recognition of the fact that ethnicity and gender are not the most underserved social categories of our society. In theoretical terms I naturally given internal essences, but subject positions constructed socially would also like to take part in the debates about the ways in which structural and culturally. Ethnicization and gendering means nothing else but revealing factors, cultural conceptions and agency are working through each other the ways in which these social identities are structuring the life opportunities while shaping women's everyday desires, claims and practices related to of the individuals, situating some of theme in disadvantaged positions. reproduction and reproductive health. While using the language of rights my paper observes that it is not My analysis was founded on an empirical research carried out by the enough to claim reproductive health in terms of rights, but there is a need to means of the ethnographic fieldwork and of the analysis of existing policies understand why economic, cultural and social processes do make impossible (its methodological concerns are discussed in Chapter 3). The former was of the de facto use of the formally recognized rights. That is why my research conducted in two Romani communities from the city of Orăştie, Hunedoara identified the obstacles of the reproductive health services usage both from county, but also within the institutions of the local health care system, using the perspective of Romani women’s life conditions and from the point of view the methods of participant observation, in-depth interviews and filming (its of the health care system. In this way I was able to show that the Romanian results are presented in Chapters 4.1., 4.2. and 4.3.). This ethnographic study reproductive health policies and the existing Roma policies were failing to was completed by interviews made with Romni activists from Cluj, respond to the interests and particular conditions of Romni, and willingly or Bucharest and Timişoara (Chapter 4.6.). At its turn the analysis of policy not transformed them into an underserved and multiple discriminated social consisted in the critical investigation of the current