Roma women’s voices and silences on unjust power regimes

The current economic crisis and the ways in which states impose austerity measures for “solving” it, reinforce both social inequalities produced and deepened in Central and Eastern Europe due to marketization and privatization, and manifestations of racism and populism directed against impoverished ethnic minorities. Materially deprived Roma women are among the most vulnerable categories subjected to these processes, while central and local governments fail providing concrete measures for reducing their multiple disadvantages. While experiencing intersectional discrimination for example due to deportations and/or forced evictions, Romani women usually perceive their problems in more ethnic and social, and less in gender terms. Similar to the way in which, generally speaking, while Roma women and men are expressing their concerns about discrimination, they stress its ethnic forms. Furthermore, Roma women, at local level, seem ready to join activism organized around ethno-social matters, and do not really expect solidarity from mainstream women organizations. On the other hand the latter, for example while addressing the issue of violence against women, they define violence in the framework of reducing differences between women and men to sexual difference, and are not concerned with the particular effects on Roma women of the violence suffered by them as members of communities stigmatized due to their ethnic background. Moreover, forms of violence endured by Roma women within their own communities (among them domestic violence and trafficking) are considered by them as “natural” elements of their life, or as events around which they should remain silent for several reasons.