Calls for recognition of Travellers as ethnic group
It is feared that because Travellers travel less than they used to, their more settled lifestyle may weaken their case to be considered as having a distinctive culture and tradition.
Niall Crowley, chief executive of the Equality Authority said there was often a restrictive view of the Traveller way of life which saw nomadism as its only distinctive feature.
“There is a tendency to associate nomadism with ethnicity and to take the view that they are not nomadic, therefore they are not an ethnic group,” he said.
He said ethnicity was much more than just one particular practice.
Under existing equality legislation it is illegal to discriminate against any person on the grounds of either their ethnicity or being a Traveller but the Equality Authority believes ethnicity should automatically cover Travellers and that by separating the two grounds, the status which Travellers are afforded is weakened.
By not formally recognising their ethnicity, the law also risks excluding Travellers from international and European human rights law.
It is not clear, for example, if the European Union’s recently issued Race Directive applies to Travellers because they do not carry the protections of an ethnic group under domestic law.
Mr Crowley said that Government policy was supportive of Travellers by encouraging educational institutions and employers to take a positive view of the community.
However, he warned that protection of Travellers should not be dependent on the mood of any particular government but should be enshrined in legislation so that all governments were bound by it.
Laurence Bond, who researched a policy document on Traveller Ethnicity launched by the Equality Authority yesterday, said Travellers were recognised as an ethnic group in Britain. They also met the criteria used by social scientists around the world for defining ethnic groups in that they tended to marry and produce children within their own group, shared common cultural values and identified themselves as a distinct group.
In the past here, however, the view was that Travellers needed to be absorbed into the wider community rather than be encouraged to maintain their distinctive culture and ways.
“Ethnicity is not a magic wand that will solve all the problems of discrimination but my view is that it would help to address discrimination,” Mr Bond said.
He said he believed the reason Travellers were legally recognised as an ethnic group here was down to: “Politics, politics, politics.”
