National Roma Centrum is structurally and systematically dealing with Roma women civil status registration. NRC’s aims to eliminate the high rates of unregistered Roma women in Macedonia, helping in procedures applying for personal registration in order to empower Roma women in the Macedonian society. NRC activities in the area of personal registration for Roma are supported by the Roma Initiative Office, Institute Open Society, since 2007 in the frameworks of the Decade for Roma Inclusion 2005-2015. Activities in this field were supported by the Ministry of Interior and the Bureau for civil registration within the Ministry of Justice.
NRC during field monitoring and work in Romani settlements has collected cases of unregulated civil status of persons or foreigners, large number of not registered births, thus generating obstacles in access to social and health protection. Some of those cases are time consuming and costly, in some cases the only personal document in possession by those persons is ID card from the time of ex Yugoslavia, and those persons are without residence or sojourn in Republic of Macedonia, although some of them are living since birth in Macedonia. In other cases persons born in neighboring country, mainly countries of ex-Yugoslavia, who continue to live in Macedonia but without regulated civil status and even without birth registration in some cases.
NRC so far has worked on 890 cases for personal documents, regarding
- 370 birth certificates
- 155 citizenships of Republic of Macedonia
- 9 foreign citizenships
- 433 ID Cards
- 2 sojourn permits
- 10 passports
- 9 certificates of non conviction
- 13 marriage certificates
- 3 deceased certificates
NRC was implementing informative meetings in the framework of project activities in 2010 due to issues related to personal civil registration in 10 cities in Macedonia – Skopje (except Suto Orizari municipality), Kumanovo Stip, Tetovo, Gostivar, Prilep, Veles, Kocani, Kavadarci, Bitola. This Information campaign was implemented almost in all the municipalities where Roma with identified registration problems reside.NRC has organized 40 public forums, two in each campaign city, in order to make close legal provisions for personal documentation and registration for people in Roma settlements. Brochures in Macedonian and Romani language were distributed in settlements, with contact details of responsible institutions.
NRC encourages the Roma members of various municipalities to become active participants and citizens in the civil society and bringing actions through administrative legal aid services in order to increase the level of legal security in the access to the basic constitutional rights of the citizens. The project activities are emphasizing the services to the Romani women population, to address the urgent and unmeet need for assistance in civil and personal registration in obtaining personal documents. Roma have many difficulties in access to citizenship compared to non Roma population. Poverty is main obstacle generating difficulties in access to procedure and payment of administrative fees. Lack of information, difficulties of access encountered by members of Roma community, many Roma have failed to apply for citizenship because of unregulated residence status although they are living in Macedonia for 15 years or more and are stateless persons in the 21st century. We encouraged the members of the Roma women community to become active citizens in the society, because lack of personal documents such as birth certificates, identification cards further contributes to the exclusion of Roma from society. Failure to register a child at birth prevents enrolment in school and inclusion in the social welfare system. Lack of personal documents also influences their access to healthcare and participation in elections.
For further information contact
Katerina Sojic
Lawyer, National Roma Centrum
E-mail: ksojic [at] nationalromacentrum [dot] org
Tel/fax: +389 (0)31 427 558