YF 2006 - ukázka obhajoby teze

AFFIRMATIVE CASE – YF ROMANIA 2006 - team Czech Republic
RESOLVED: THAT A POLICY SHOULD BE ADOPTED TO PROMOTE GLOBAL COMPLIANCE WITH THE CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD

Good morning ladies and gentlemen,

It is my greatest pleasure to welcome you here. We would like to present you our plan that will comply with the convention on the rights of the child. The topic that we would like to speak about today is Roma Children.

Because according to the Council of Europe 95 % of Roma live in Europe We would like to discuss the situation of Roma in Europe, primarily in Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Slovakia where the numbers of Roma people are the most significant (global compliance = dealing with the problem in countries where is most severe).

Roma children nowadays face daily harshness breaching Convention on the rights of the child - to be precise it means articles: 2, 3, 12, 13, 19, 20, 24, 28, 34.

Children:
1. are forced to get married
2. get no education
3. generally discriminated, or rejected rights to justice, almost no shelters

So these are the problems and where is the cause? It is the lack of interest of state authorities.

According to the Council of Europe: The governments of Romania and Bulgaria that are candidate states did very limited progress in addressing the situation of Roma. Moreover, in Slovakia (which is already a member of EU) the roma children live in society, where discrimination and racial violance is tolerated because it is not adequately dealt by state authorities. Our Plan ensures that the government that are nowadays hesitant to conduct effective changes will do so.

We would like to illustrate the problems of Roma children on the example of Roma girl Anna Maria Cioba from Romania. Being 12-years old she was forced by her parents to marry 15-years old boy. After the marriage she was forced to have sex.

The question is what steps the local government made. Firstly, it didn´t initiate any investigation. After the appeal of the European parliament to separate married couple and give them into custody, local authorities only banned the couple to share one house. Unfortunately for Anna Maria, nowadays they live in a direct neighbourhood.

This is a life story of most Roma children because according to The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights the cultural tradition of marrying young girls is spread all over the country.

Our plan would use the dominant role of European Union in Europe. Our Plan would be different for candidate states and member states of EU.

As for Member states we will use the very basic principle of decision making in the EU because EU can order the member to fulfil the regulations that would become a part of acquis communitaire. Because EU recognizes the harshness of Romas we would impose our plan on the member states’ governments. For our plan we would use the structural funds (specifically European social fund) of EU. This plan consists of 3 steps:

1. Education – Poor level of education is a key factor in the continuing cyrcle of Roma exclusion.(CAFOD) ; ERRC suggests not give social benefits to parents who would not send their children to school, In order to improve the situation we would introduce Preschool education, Psychological tests in order to prevent segregation at school, we would donate scholarships for Roma children, Roma assistants in school, Seminars for Roma children to inform them about their rights (what to do when they are breached, where to find help, about the litigation, roles of ombudsman, amicus curiae etc.

2. Justice - Amicus Curiae (=party involved in a particular litigation, it is allowed by the court to advise on a matter of law or fact directly affecting litigation) – recommended by Dragan Ristic from European Roma rights centre, shelters for abused roma children during litigation - The only Romanian shelter in Bucharest can accomodate 4 persons. (Home office)
Antidiscriminatory seminars for state authorities and officials including policemen
Marital rape law

3. Facing discrimination, change the racialist atmosphere in the major society
Country wide anti-discriminatory campaigns – supported by Helena Danielova, Roma expert

Passing antidiscriminatory laws, Hate speech law

As for Candidate states (Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia): The EU has a strong political role and diplomatic position. During the process of accession to EU we would include above mentioned requirements for improving the conditions of Roma in Candidate states. Because the membership in EU is very prestigious and beneficial for every Balkan country, the will to become its member would be a strong motivation. Failing to fulfill the requirements we would not allow the country to join EU.

Benefits

Now let´s point out the global benefits which will our plan being about. The first one is that the rights of Roma children will not be breached anymore and also our plan means future increase of living standard of a child and child´s family, education for a child and employment from which each state can benefit. And this all will help the integration of Roma minority into society which is extremely important issue.