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Ekklesia
- Archbishop criticises government over sex trafficking -
The Anglican Archbishop of York has said that the government is not responding effectively to new pan-European attempts to tackle sex trafficking.
Describing the practice of forcing women and children into prostitution as “modern-day slavery”, Dr John Sentamu said he was "shocked" that the UK coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had opted out of a European Union directive aimed at encouraging nations to join forces against the trade.
He called on the Government to rethink its “seriously flawed” position and “make the UK a more hostile environment for traffickers”.
“This is women being exploited, degraded and subjected to horrific risks solely for the gratification and economic greed of others," said the Archbishop, who is number two in the Church of England,
“I am stunned to learn the Government are opting out of an EU directive designed to tackle sex trafficking," he continued. “This seems to be a common-sense directive designed to co-ordinate European efforts to combat the trade in sex slaves. What we need are tough cross-border solutions to international problems."
“We need to join with our European brothers and sisters and put an end to this evil trade," concluded Dr Sentamu.
According to the International Labour Organisation, 43 per cent of the 2.45 million individuals across the world currently being trafficked are forced into the sex trade, most of them women or young girls.
“Britain should get involved now and be part of improving the situation, not sitting on the sidelines offering wise words once the match is over,” the Archbishop declared.
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- German Protestant journalist was 'voice for the voiceless' -
Germany is remembering the man known as the "father of Protestant media" on the centenary of his birth and paying tribute to his unswerving belief in the need for journalistic independence write Peter Kenny and Stephen Brown.
Born on 1 September 1910, Robert Geisendörfer was appointed director of the Bavarian Protestant Press Association in 1947. His task was to rebuild church media work after the Nazi dictatorship of Adolf Hitler and the Second World War.
A tribute published on the OVB online news site (http://ovb-online.de) recalled his motto: "The task of Protestant journalism is to make something public, practise advocacy, demonstrate compassion, and be a voice for the voiceless."
After his stint at the Bavarian press association, Geisendörfer became the broadcasting commissioner of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), the country's main Protestant umbrella. Later he was director of the Protestant Press Association of Germany, then responsible for the German Protestant news agency, the Evangelischer Pressedienst (epd).
Geisendörfer went on to found the Frankfurt-based Association for Protestant Media (GEP) as a centre for German Protestant communications work. This took over responsibility for epd, Germany's oldest news agency, founded in the year of Geisendörfer's birth.
At the time there were concerns that epd's journalistic independence might be affected by being part of GEP, but these were quickly dissipated.
Instead there were protests from some church officials against EKD subsidies for epd's independent journalism as set down in its charter. Such church officials believed that epd should only report on what was "beneficial" to the church.
A tribute published by epd recalled Geisendörfer's belief that Protestant journalism could exercise its role only in journalistic freedom.
"Geisendörfer doggedly and unflinchingly stood up for such freedom against the demands of the leadership of the church," the tribute recalled of Geisendörfer, who died in 1976 aged 65.
Earlier in 2010, epd marked its own 100th anniversary, with a celebration in Berlin at which the keynote speaker was Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up in a church milieu due to her father being a Lutheran pastor in the former East Germany.
In front of 300 guests from Church, media, politics and society, Merkel praised the role of epd as an important sentinel helping to ensure that "political and social institutions are controlled, criticised, and made transparent".
In her speech at the 3 February ceremony, Merkel noted it is not always comfortable for churches or their leaders to read news about them that is critical.
"Which pastor or bishop likes to read about certain drawbacks or deficiencies they may have? This may be a normal situation for politicians, but in church institutions, respect and dignity is maybe still understood differently," said Merkel. "In this regard one can certainly expect a tense relationship with the churches."
Still, Bishop Ulrich Fischer, who heads the EKD's media committee, said in his congratulations to the agency, "Sometimes news from epd is uncomfortable, even for a bishop. But in the final analysis, such critical support also helps one to get one's own statements right."
The agency now reaches about two-thirds of the daily newspapers in Germany. It says it serves a combined total of 37 million readers, as well as public broadcasters and online clients.
Eight regional services are linked with each other and to the central editorial office in Frankfurt/Main. More than 80 journalists are employed for epd in more than 30 German towns and cities.
ENInews and epd also have a news exchange agreement and the German agency provides text and photos for the areas of church and religion, media and education, society, social affairs, and development issues.
The Rev Olav Fykse Tveit, the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, a founder member of ENInews, said in an anniversary message, "Without the central and important role played by Church and church-related news agencies such as epd, the voice of the Church in society cannot be heard."
Tveit noted, "That this voice is able to be heard in a credible and professional fashion is not just a question of using the best tools and structures, but depends crucially on the credibility and competence of staff and management."
He added, "The independent and critical position of epd thereby corresponds to the essential criteria for the task of news agencies in democratic societies."
[With acknowledgements to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Conference of European Churches.]
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- Feed your friends and feed the minds, says charity -
The Christian international education charity, Feed the Minds (FTM) has announced the launch of a new initiative to mark International Literacy Day on 8 September 2010. They aim to raise money to support international literacy and education projects.
The Lunches for Life campaign asks supporters to host a lunch for friends, families, colleagues or schoolmates, who are invited to make a contribution to their meal. The funds will be put towards FTM’s Education for Change programme, which helps vulnerable and disadvantaged people across the developing world.
FTM says that “scores of fundraisers” are already signed up to the initiative, with events scheduled across the UK, including Perth, Salisbury, Norfolk, York and London.
As part of the campaign launch, one of the beneficiaries of a Feed the Minds literacy programme will be visiting the UK to officially endorse the initiative. 35-year-old Sierra Leonean Josephine Sifoe is a victim of the vicious civil war in her country.
Sifoe has experienced profound personal tragedy and until three years ago was illiterate. Thanks to a FTM literacy and education programme, she can now read and write, is numerate and as a result has been able to turn her life and the life of her family around.
“As well as feeding friends and family, Lunches for Life will help feed the minds of marginalised people from across the globe,” said FTM’s Adam Sach.
FTM have launched a dedicated website for the Lunches for Life initiative, providing a range of fundraising resources designed to support anyone considering getting involved. They describe it as “packed full of tips, recipes, downloadable invitations and posters”.
Sach added, “We hope that this new scheme will become an annual event and will enable us to deliver more education projects, while also raising awareness of how education can make a world of difference.”
[Ekk/1]
- Churches warn on legal aid cuts punishing the most vulnerable -
With cuts in civil legal aid due to hit asylum seekers and other vulnerable groups, the Methodist Church has urged the government to rethink.
Last week the Legal Services Commission announced it is to reduce the number of firms able to offer social, welfare and family legal aid from about 2,400 to 1,300, in a move condemned by the Refugee Council and other welfare groups.
Methodist spokesperson Rachel Lampard, who is Leader and Policy Adviser for the Joint Public Issues Team of the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church and the Baptists, commented: "Cutting the legal aid budget puts already vulnerable people at greater risk of being returned to dangerous situations."
She continued: "We recognise that the Government wants to make budget savings in this area, but this should only be done once we are confident that people will not be denied justice as a result. The quality of initial decision-making in asylum cases must first be improved – it is estimated that as many as a quarter of initial decisions are currently overturned on appeal."
"Sound and timely legal representation is vital if correct decisions are to be made in the first place, and incorrect decisions overturned. People who have few resources of their own must be able to access legal aid to ensure that they receive justice," concluded Lampard.
Meanwhile, the Refugee Council's CEO, Donna Covey said: "Slashing funding for legal aid and restricting the number of law firms that can provide it means asylum-seekers will either be forced to pay for legal services themselves or, more likely, to go without."
She continued: "This will result in people who deserve protection here being wrongly refused asylum and returned to countries where their lives are in danger. This is unacceptable.
"People who have fled human rights abuses and are now seeking safety in our country must have legal representation to ensure they are given a fair hearing and can be recognised as genuine refugees. As asylum-seekers are not allowed to work, they have no choice but to rely on publicly funded legal advice," declared Ms Covey.
Desmond Hudson, CEO of the Law Society, the official body for solicitors, called on the Legal Services Commission to publish in full the findings of its recent review.
He said: "The fall-out from the recent tendering process will see almost 50 per cent of firms previously doing legal aid work removed in a matter of a few weeks."
"The effect of such a massive reduction in the number of firms is that tens of thousands of clients around England and Wales are likely to be forced to find a new family solicitor all at the same time in October 2010," said Hudson.
"This will impact heavily on families and vulnerable people, preventing them [gaining] access to vital legal services when they need them most. As important, is the glaring evidence that the allocation and distribution of contracts will leave significant problems for access to justice," he concluded.
As part of its cuts in public spending, the Ministry of Justice is looking to axe 25 per cent from its £6 billion a year budget, and legal assistance to vulnerable groups is in the firing line.
Legal aid assists two million people every year in cases ranging from child custody to asylum application. But the bulk of the savings will come from the £900 million a year spent on civil legal aid rather than on criminal cases.
Under a new tendering system, many of the nation's oldest legal aid firms, as well as key specialists, will no longer be able to provide the service to those most in need.
[Ekk/3]
- Labour's loves not quite lost -
During the last few weeks, I have been receiving emails from the Labour leadership candidates. Some of them have sent text messages urging me to text back my voting intentions. These communications have a tendency towards producing a quick, emotional response.
Time to think, not only about the five contenders, but about the very nature of leadership, is essential and Graeme Smith's article Why Labour's next leader should not be a prophet offers plenty of food for thought. So much, in fact, that I found myself subject to a certain amount of confusion, despite his elucidation of the undoubted dangers of certain prophetic qualities.
It is my belief that a good leader must have a vision, even if he or she is not a full-blown visionary - with all the possibilities of lonely obsession and unmoderated zeal which attend that condition. And the bounds of vision and prophecy are divided by very thin partitions. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech was able to do what no amount of managerial competence or pragmatism - necessary qualities though these are – could ever have achieved.
It is open to question as to whether King was a prophet or an extraordinarily courageous and effective leader. But it is certain that unless vision is subject to alert self-discipline, it may become overblown and grandiose (qualities which are particularly abhorrent to Anglo-Saxons who are suspicious of rhetoric) and is ever in danger of falling in love with its own music to the detriment of engaging those it seeks to inspire. Neil Kinnock, who was capable of passion and eloquence, was derided as "the Welsh Windbag" for that very reason. I suspect that both Lloyd George and Nye Bevan would have met with similar epithets had they lived into our own time.
Voters are weary of spin, contemptuous of the moral deformities of "being on-message" and above all, utterly disillusioned with the journey of Tony Blair from managerial "what works" politics to the messianic certainties of his stance on the Iraq war. Blair has utilised religious belief as both justification and self-exculpation: his proclamation that he would "answer to God" for his actions may well be true. But it is the business of a political leader, particularly a Prime Minister, to answer to the people who elect his party and in whose name he governs.
This is where an overtly confessional approach goes astray and alienates many people of faith and of good faith who rightly demand temporal accountability. "Think it possible that you may be mistaken" we are urged in the Advices and Queries of the Religious Society of Friends. Humility is not the enemy of either conviction or of passion and the conviction politician must retain that awareness if an unaudited sense of their own rightness - and righteousness - is not to lead them into isolation and unreality. Alliances and compromises are likely to be necessary and the man or woman who knows just how far to go in that direction without doing violence to conscience, is likely to be a leader worthy of respect.
Graeme Smith is right to remind us that it is the role of prophets to speak truth to power – to be the grit in the oyster, the gadfly to the conscience - while leaders, exercising power and enacting laws, must offer hope. If "the art of the possible" is to be combined with the moral clarity and vision which is necessary to offer the hope of transforming our profoundly unequal society, a singular integrity will be demanded of the man or woman who would lead the Labour Party from opposition to government.
To clear my mind as to the nature of that integrity, I turned to the Quaker Testimony of Truth. This reminds me that integrity is so much more than refraining from lying. It is to be whole and entire and to have no disjunction between belief and practice; its fruits are consistency and honesty towards self and others. It is to act at all times and in all places with the outer coherence which makes inner conviction clear, whatever the short-term cost may be.
This demands of me, as a Quaker member of the Labour Party, to put aside what may be instinctive inclinations and to seek for evidence of that integrity amongst all five contenders. The interventions of Neil Kinnock, Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair are irrelevant here and the pro and anti arguments about New Labour are secondary, although I hope that the new leader will have the courage to acknowledge that the party of the past 13 years has been neither new enough nor Labour enough.
Unlock Democracy's online 'Vote Match' tool surprised me by revealing that my intended 5th choice was in fact the candidate whose policy views are closest to my own. It would seem that I still have some thinking to do about the relationship between policy stance, leadership qualities, personal inclination and integrity.
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© Jill Segger is a Quaker and Ekklesia's associate editor. She is a freelance writer who contributes to the Church Times, Catholic Herald, Tribune, and The Friend, among other publications. Jill is also a composer. See: http://www.journalistdirectory.com/journalist/TQig/Jill-Segger
- Anglicans at cross-purposes -
He was the Word, that spake it:
He took the bread and brake it;
And what that Word did make it,
I do believe and take it.So wrote Anglican priest and poet John Donne, not seeking to define precisely what happens at communion, an issue much disputed in his time. These lines are sometimes attributed to Elizabeth I, who famously said that she did not want to “make windows into men’s souls”. She also reportedly declared that “there is only one Jesus Christ” and “the rest is a dispute over trifles”.
Though the Reformation was at times bloody in England as well as other parts of Europe, her approach was more pragmatic than that of her father, Henry VIII. Provided those inclined to a more Catholic spirituality did not challenge the state, they could coexist with ardent Calvinists in the Church of England, where worship combined the old and new.
Intolerance and rivalry continued in some quarters and occasionally flared up, and quite a number of members attended church as more a civic than a religious activity. Yet at best, the Church of England offered fertile soil for faith to flourish and develop, occasionally renewed by Wesleyan and other revivals.
Theological diversity was linked with the variety of ways in which churchgoers related to God in prayer and everyday life, and the varying circumstances of the parishes where they sought to serve the community and live out their faith. As autonomous churches were set up in other parts of the world, and Christians responded to social change in different ways, diversity among Anglicans further increased.
While labels such as “traditionalist”, “conservative”, “liberal”, “Anglo-Catholic” and “evangelical” are sometimes used, these may bring more confusion than clarity. For instance, some Anglo-Catholics are implacably opposed to women priests, while others are women priests themselves. The term “evangelical” can encompass anyone from Phillip Jensen, the ultra-Protestant Dean of Sydney, to the gay bishop, Gene Robinson.
Sometimes, the tension between different approaches to faith has been creative, and enabled Anglicans like the late Michael Ramsey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, to play an active part in the ecumenical movement. However, many Anglicans now move largely in circles filled with the like-minded – or, if they are part of a minority in their congregation, diocese or college, try to steer clear of controversial matters. Often, there has been a lack of dialogue, except when disputes have arisen.
In recent years, there has been a drive by some leaders who see themselves as the vanguard of a new reformation in the Anglican Communion, to root out views they regard as erroneous. One response has been to try to develop central structures to decide what is permitted in different provinces, and exclude those who do not agree or treat them as “second-tier” Anglicans.
Understandably, others have pointed out the value of diversity, and called for this to be safeguarded. However there is also a need for better communication so that more Anglicans understand why others hold opinions different from their own.
It is not certain what will happen structurally within the Communion. Yet whatever threats or divisions take place at an official level, Anglicans can make efforts to deepen their understanding of one another, even if the main aim in certain cases might be to convert those who have strayed from 'the truth'!
Some may steer clear of study and discussion along these lines, either because they are impatient with those who disagree, or feel too bruised by past encounters. However, for Anglicans ready and willing to engage with others, not simply debating specific issues but exploring underlying beliefs about God and love of neighbour, and the spiritual journeys that underpin faith, there may be opportunities to learn and grow.
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© Savitri Hensman was born in Sri Lanka. She works in the voluntary sector in community care and equalities in the UK, and she is also a respected writer on Christianity and social justice. Savi is an Ekklesia associate. She has contributed several chapters on Anglican issues and biblical interpretation to the book Fear or Freedom? Why a warring church must change (edited by Simon Barrow, Shoving Leopard / Ekklesia).
- Accord launches 2010 inclusive schools award -
The Accord Coalition for inclusive education has launched its 2010 Award for 'good examples' of schools which welcome and involve all.
The Accord Award, which was established last year, is the first of its kind. It recognises the achievements of state maintained schools that celebrate the diversity of beliefs, both religious and non-religious, within the school and wider community which go beyond the school’s legal requirements on inclusion and equality.
The prestigious Award is open to all state-funded schools and was won last year by Manorside Primary School in North London, with runners up being the Anglo-European School in Essex and Balshaw’s Church of England High School in Leyland, Lancashire.
The year’s Award will be judged by another respected and experienced panel of experts including Dr Mary Bousted, General Secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers; Baroness Kishwer Falkner, an expert on human rights and multiculturalism; Fiona Millar, journalist and education campaigner; Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain MBE, minister of the Maidenhead Synagogue and chair of The Accord Coalition; and Simon Barrow, co-director of the Christian think-tank Ekklesia and a former assisant general secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.
The deadline for entries is 5pm on Monday 10 November and prizes will be awarded in the New Year. The judges will be looking for schools having an ethos which celebrates inclusion and that pride themselves on building links within and between communities.
The winning school will be announced in the local and national press. Details on the Accord Award can be found at the organisation’s website (http://accordcoalition.org.uk/).
Launching the 2010 Award, Accord Coalition chair, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, commented: "Many people sit back complain about the state of our schools. However, The Accord Coalition does the reverse and is committed to seeking out and rewarding those schools that are inclusive, tolerant and transparent."
He continued: "Many schools are remarkably successful at improving cohesion and it is time that those institutions that work hard to build bridges between the different ethnic and religion or belief communities are praised."
Simon Barrow, co-director of the religion and society think-tank Ekklesia, which was a co-founder of the Accord Coalition, said: "This award shows both the diversity and the community capability of education in this country. It rewards and highlights those who are working to break down barriers of religion and belief in schooling, and demonstrates that the arguments for maintaining discrimination in admissions, employment, curriculum and assembly in some schools are outdated and unnecessary."
"It is vitally important to encourage inclusive education through good example rather than cajoling, and to research on the de-benefits of restrictive practices with encouragement towards those schools that show a better way, whatever their background or foundation," he added.
The Accord Coalition was launched in September 2008 to bring together religious and civic organisations and individuals campaigning for an end to religious discrimination in school staffing and admissions.
The Coalition also campaigns for a fair and balanced RE curriculum, for pupils to receive Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education, and for the replacement of the requirement for compulsory collective worship with inspiring, inclusive assemblies.
The coalition does not take a position for or against faith schools in principle, and its members take different positions on this issue. The aim is to create a fresh debate by bringing people together across the divide to argue for reform.
Accord's growing list of members and supporters include the the Christian think tank Ekklesia, British Muslims for Secular Democracy, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, and the British Humanist Association. It also has members from the four largest groupings in parliament.
[Ekk/3]
- Bishops warn South African media law would restrict press freedom -
Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops in South Africa have urged the government to withdraw and redraft a proposed media law that critics say would allow authorities to classify virtually any official information as secret - writes Munyaradzi Makoni.
"We believe that the bill violates the spirit of openness and accountability that is so necessary to underpin the constitution's provisions on good governance, essential for a healthy democracy," said South African Cardinal Wilfrid Napier in a statement this week.
Napier was active in the struggle against apartheid and said that there would be practically no right of appeal against rulings under the law, as any appeal would be processed by the same people who made the original decision.
"We certainly do not want government to take us back to the oppressive practices of yesteryear, against which our common struggle was launched," said the cardinal.
Separately, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa warned that the draft law on protection of information threatens to undermine rights including freedom of expression and freedom of religion, "to which we as South Africans subscribed when our elected representatives adopted our constitution in 1996."
In an article published in the Cape Times newspaper, Makgoba said, "What is notable about the Protection of Information Bill as it currently stands is that it seeks to punish not lies or incorrect information ... but rather truthful information based on official documents."
A campaign called Right2know aimed at stopping the secrecy bill seen as a major threat to hard-won freedom was held on 31 August 2010 at Cape Town's St. George's Anglican Cathedral, where South Africans rallied against apartheid in the 1970s and 1980s.
Those who oppose the proposed law say that in its current form investigative journalists could be prosecuted and face a prison sentence of up to 25 years for reporting on government information.
"Tamper with press freedom, and you tamper with the freedom of every citizen to receive and impart information and ideas," said Makgoba, who is archbishop of Cape Town. "We cannot draw a line around press freedom, restricting the rights of journalists, without limiting the rights of all of us."
Napier said that while Catholic bishops accept that some degree of restriction of information is, "both legitimate and necessary," the bishops had grave misgivings about the way this would be done if the proposal becomes law. He said the measure risks entrenching a culture of non-accountability and non-transparency among state officials at all levels.
"The definition of national interest and national security are so broad that they could be used to keep secret matters that ought by right to be accessible to the public," said Napier, who heads the diocese of Durban and was speaking for the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference.
[With acknowledgements to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Conference of European Churches.]
[Ekk/3]
- Kirk continues to press urgent case for Malawian family -
The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has made a further impassioned plea to keep a Malawian mother and daughter in Scotland.
The Rt Rev John Christie addressed over 2,000 Church of Scotland Guild members at their annual meeting in Dundee’s Caird Hall last week, putting the case for asylum seekers Precious and Florence Mhango.
Mrs Mhango has argued that, if returned to Africa, her daughter will be taken to live with her former husband's family and will be at risk of genital mutilation.
The Moderator based his speech on the Guild’s key theme for the 2010-11 session, “called to love mercy”.
He voiced his bitter disappointment at Home Secretary Theresa May, after she refused to intervene in the Mhangos' case following a joint letter from himself, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and the head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O’Brien.
“There are certainly for the three of us, and many others, good reasons for them to be allowed to stay in Scotland," declared Christie. ”This is an opportunity for compassionate love and it would be disappointing, to say the least, if they are deported."
He added: “The New Testament is full of examples between the tension of the law, and grace and compassion. In these set of exceptional circumstances I believe grace and compassion should prevail.”
After Mrs Mhango left her violent and abusive husband, the pair no longer had the right to stay in the UK.
Precious, aged 10, and her mother lost an immigration appeal at the High Court in London and were ordered to return to Malawi in July 2010.
The family, who were staying in Cranhill in Glasgow, hope to appeal against the deportation ruling, but could now be removed at any time.
The Guild, staunch campaigners against injustices such as human trafficking and domestic abuse, have added their support to the battle to keep the two Malawian asylum seekers in Scotland.
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- Slovak schools slammed over treatment of Romani children -
Amnesty International is urging the Slovak government to immediately end the segregation of Romani children in the country’s education system.
In a new report - Steps To End Segregation In Education - sent to the Slovak government, Amnesty points to serious gaps in the enforcement and monitoring of the ban on discrimination and segregation in the country's educational system.
They say that as a result of the gap, thousands of Romani pupils are in sub-standard education in schools and classes for pupils with “mild mental disabilities” or ethnically segregated mainstream schools and classes.
While Roma are estimated to comprise less than 10 per cent of Slovakia’s total population, they make up 60 per cent of pupils in special schools, according to a 2009 survey. In regions with high Romani populations, three out of every four pupils in special schools are Roma; 85 per cent of children in special classes in mainstream schools are Roma.
“Romani children across Slovakia remain trapped in a school system that keeps failing them as a result of widespread discrimination,” said David Diaz-Jogeix, Amnesty International Europe Deputy-Director.
“It deprives Romani children of equal opportunities and sentences them to a life of poverty and marginalisation,” he added, “Segregation in education means a life-long stigma for children whose future chances are brutally limited”.He insisted that this is “a practice that does not belong to 21st-century Europe and must be eliminated”.
Amnesty’s report shows that segregation of Romani children in Slovakia takes various forms: special schools or special classes within mainstream schools designed for pupils with “mild mental disabilities”, and mainstream Roma-only schools and classes. In some cases, school heads have admitted segregating Roma children simply to stop non-Roma parents removing their children in a so-called “white flight” response.
One case highlighted in the report is that of Jakub, a boy from a Roma settlement near Bratislava who was transferred to a special class for children with “mild mental disabilities” in his mainstream school after a disagreement with his teacher. Jakub was a scholarship pupil with an excellent academic record whom another of his teachers described as a “genius” who should not have been segregated.
The causes of segregation, says Amnesty, are complex and include entrenched anti-Roma attitudes as well as policy failures in the education system such as early and flawed child assessment and insufficient support for Romani children within mainstream education.
Amnesty reports that widespread anti-Romani sentiment in Slovakia has led to segregation of Romani children even in mainstream schools and classes. They cite situations in which Romani children are sometimes literally locked into separate classrooms, corridors or buildings to prevent them from mixing with non-Roma pupils.
The new Slovak government recently committed itself to eliminating the segregated schooling of Roma, yet Amnesty is concerned that this has not been followed by a clear and unequivocal statement by the head of government that ethnic discrimination and segregation of Roma is unacceptable and will be combated as a matter of priority.“The choices that the government makes now will affect the lives of thousands of Romani children,” said Diaz-Jogeix, “The government holds the key to allow the Roma in Slovakia full participation in Slovak and European society”.
Amnesty is calling on the Slovak authorities to introduce a clear duty on all schools to desegregate education and to provide them with effective support.They are also urging them to introduce adequate support measures for Roma and non-Roma children who need extra assistance, so that they may achieve their fullest potential within mainstream schools.
Their other urgent suggestions include the provision of of the State School Inspectorate with adequate resources, including robust, detailed guidelines and procedures on how to identify, monitor and combat segregation in practice. And they also want the authorities to begin the systematic collection of data on education, disaggregated on the basis of gender and ethnicity.
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