On the anniversary of the First Roma World Congress, held in April 1971 in London, the Council of Europe organized the “Opre Roma!” month, with the goal of promoting the culture and history of Roma people and to fight anti-Gypsist behaviors and biases that hamper attempts to higher levels of integration.

The Council of Europe is the international organization that has been the most active in countering anti-Gypsyism: indeed, the Parliamentary Assembly (the parliamentary body of the Council, which reunites representatives from all the 46 Member States that joined the organization) adopted the first Recommendation on the situation of Roma in Europe already in 1969. In that document, members of the CoE were already widely aware and even concerned by the social and political changes that were taking place in Europe, because everything was posing severe challenges to the preservation of the Roma culture, also due to the poor living, working, and educational conditions that Roma people were facing all over the continent already more than 50 years ago. Thus, the Parliamentary Assembly also developed a series of recommendations for States, asking them to be proactive in stop discrimination, through legislation or administrative practice, to improve Roma’s living conditions by ensuring that “sanitary installations, electricity, telephones, community buildings, and fire precautions” (Recommendation 563/1969, Point 8.2) are implemented in Roma settlements. This clearly was not a long-term solution, because it was not addressing the systemic discrimination that Roma people were dealing with by being forced to live at the very margins (both geographically and socially) of their communities. Yet, it is still worth mentioning that the impulse given by Council of Europe representatives was crucial to raise awareness on the necessity to address anti-Gypsyism issues more consistently.

Throughout the decades, the CoE never lost its driving force when it came to emphasize Member States’ responsibilities in ensuring the respect of Human and Minority Rights, as well as in countering well-rooted biases from non-Roma. Aside from adopting recommendations, whose enforceability is unfortunately more in the hands of Member States and more rarely in those of the CoE’s monitoring bodies, the CoE also worked in the direction of involving individuals more. This is crucial because changes in society cannot happen simply through a top-down process in which stakeholders impose new rules from above; rather, this process should be accompanied by a new level of understanding and empathy by the population. Otherwise, any progressive attempt at countering anti-Gypsyism will likely not take root among those who don’t have any direct experience of the problem and its devastating consequences on Roma.

That is why the idea of launching a month specifically to celebrate the culture, language and history of Roma people is particularly important: because it aims at making political activism and Human Rights related questions more accessible to everybody, showing citizens the importance of fighting for a more equal society together. Additionally, among the declared intentions of Opre Roma! (Stand up, Roma!), there is also the idea of inaugurating new partnerships and reinforcing already existing ones based on strategies for the inclusion of Roma people. In this framework, many CoE countries have developed a specific program to take place all along the month of April, including artistic exhibitions, academic debates, film screenings, and much more.

Unfortunately, not all countries seem to have understood the importance of the Opre Roma! month and its finalities. This seems to be the case for Italy, a country that hosts between 120,000 and 180,000 Roma people, many of whom are still lacking Italian citizenship. Indeed, when looking at the initiatives put in place for the month of April, we can only find a quite vague “National Week of the Promotion of Romani Culture and Tackling Antigypsyism in Italy”, lasting from April 3rd to April 13th. A quick research on the Web already gives us the possibility to access the list of entities and organizations that applied for fundings to create specific projects during this week: out of 43 applicants, 37 got selected and received financial contributions. However, all of them are relatively small associations, and even though their efforts are obviously crucial on the local level, it would have been useful to have some coordinated actions, under the guide of more centralized institutions such as the Italian government or bigger organizations/entities whose scope is precisely that of representing Roma at the national level.

No official statement has been released by any member of the Italian government or of the opposition neither before nor on the International Day of Roma people, April 8th, to draw the attention of Italian citizens towards the existence of the Opre Roma! month, nor to emphasize the difficult living conditions Roma are forced to deal with, and not even to promote the implementation of the 2021-2030 National Strategy for Equality, Inclusivity, and Participation of Roma and Sinti (Strategia Nazionale di uguaglianza, inclusione e partecipazione di Rom e Sinti 2021-2030). This is not uncommon, and it would be wrong to perceive it just as a result of the political composition of the current government. Indeed, Roma in Italy were often neglected, and their voices remained unheard, no matter which political force was in power.

There is still hope for any sign of acknowledgment of how problematic the situation of Roma in Italy is from politicians, as this would be a very important step to draw more attention to the issue. However, the lack of Italian citizenship for many Roma, and the fact that they are - more often than not - confined to suburban areas of cities, makes it easier for politicians to adopt an “out of sight, out of mind” approach. If those who are in power keep on abandoning those in need, even without helping those associations that care for them, no actual change will actually happen. Given all the above, Italy definitely should not miss the occasion offered by the Opre Roma! month to reflect on the current conditions of Roma, and on how to improve them.