European Roma Rights Centre

The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) is a Budapest-based international public interest law organisation established in 1996 and working to combat anti-Romani racism and human rights abuse of Roma through strategic litigation, research and policy development, advocacy and human rights education.  The ERRC’s website includes research reports, the ERRC’s journal (Roma Rights), advocacy submissions sent to national, European and international bodies, and other materials about the ERRC’s work and Roma rights in general.  The ERRC is currently litigating some 60 cases in domestic and European courts concerning Roma rights violations in eleven European countries.

 At the moment, the ERRC is focusing on seven thematic priorities.  Statelessness relates most closely to three of these:  identity documents; women’s and children’s rights; and free movement and migration.   The ERRC comes across Roma at risk of statelessness in all of its areas of work, particularly outside the EU and especially in Balkan countries.  Stateless Roma (and Roma at risk of statelessness) often lack the documents they need to get healthcare, go to school, access to employment, travel across borders, or secure formal recognition of their family relationships. They tell us they feel invisible.

 

European Roma Rights Centre website

Hungarian Helsinki Committee

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) is one of the leading non-governmental human rights organisations in Hungary and Central Europe. It monitors the enforcement in Hungary of human rights enshrined in international human rights instruments, provides legal defence to victims of human rights abuses by state authorities and informs the public about rights violations. The HHC's main areas of activities are centred on protecting the rights of asylum-seekers, stateless persons and other foreigners in need of international protection, as well as monitoring the human rights performance of law enforcement agencies and the judicial system. It particularly focuses on the conditions of detention, anti-discrimination and the effective enforcement of the right to defence and equality before the law. The HHC is a member of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) and is an implementing partner of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Hungarian Helsinki Committee website