Cases highlight plight of vulnerable Roma children

Often, we are told that we look like our parents. We have our mother’s eyes or our father’s chin. Occasionally, we so closely resemble a brother or sister that we can be mistaken for twins. But sometimes, we look nothing like our parents at all.

Law enforcement is expected to intervene when they witness suspicious behaviour, but racial profiling occurs when state agencies use ethnicity as a factor in decision making.

In the past two days, members of the public have identified children in Roma families as being potential abductees — because they don’t look like their parents. On foot of these notifications, children and their parents have been separated. They have undergone DNA testing to prove that they are who they say they are. This is, by definition, racial profiling.

Child protection concerns are serious — too serious to ignore. But precipitative action in relation to child protection cases based solely on the appearance of young children must be condemned. Even if this action was well intentioned it was undertaken in haste and potentially in contravention of accepted child protection standards and it has demonised an entire community and threatened years of trust-building efforts.

We agree without question that the welfare and safety of children are paramount, but this is true of all children, be they blonde-haired and blue-eyed or brown-haired and brown-eyed, Roma or Irish.

It would be extremely dangerous to initiate a pattern based solely on negative stereotypes, reinforcing hatred without cause or reason. Such labelling, especially over time, contributes to the demonisation of minorities and have created the conditions for discrimination and persecution.

The historic labelling of Roma as “child snatchers” was exploited by the Nazis in World War Two to help justify the genocide of around one million Roma, Sinti and Travellers in Europe.

We should all be concerned about child protection in Ireland. But instead of focusing on the fact that some children look different to their parents, we should recognise that many Roma children are in extremely vulnerable situations, living in destitution and suffering under the brunt of harsh social welfare restrictions.

There is an onus on the State to protect all of these vulnerable children and we call on the State to be as pro-active in their response to the needs of these children.

Ireland was recently criticised by the European Commission for its failure to develop a progressive and inclusive strategy for Roma integration. Ireland desperately needs to develop a progressive strategy for Roma integration, created with the engagement of Roma and Travelling people and their representatives.

Former Council of Europe commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg put it best: “In many European countries Roma and Travellers are still denied basic human rights and suffer blatant racism. They remain far behind others in education, employment, access to decent housing and health. Their average life span is shorter and infant mortality rates are higher compared to other groups.” The truth we need to face is that our policies are lacking when it comes to the Roma. We have isolated them for too long and they pay a heavy price for it.

The Roma community are isolated and marginalised the world over. They suffer extreme racism, hate crimes, segregated education, forced evictions and collective expulsions. Roma are grossly over-represented in state care institutions across Europe. As yet, that is not the case in Ireland, but it will be if we don’t develop a strong policy of integration and support.

There has always been suspicion levelled against the Roma community and these suspicions have long been exacerbated by institutional racism and hate speech. This week, those suspicions simply went too far. Warning bells should be sounding. We should be worried about the children, but not just the blonde haired and blue eyed ones.

Martin Collins and Ronnie Fay are co-directors of Pavee Point