Vaccination and immunization of Roma population: Vaccines – a luxury for Roma

Interviewed by: Nadežda Gaće

For years, the gloomy picture of living in Roma communities in our society has been commented in a laconic way – Roma like to live like that. That is simply not true. Thanks to the persistence, awareness and commitment of the Opra Roma activists of Serbia (ORS), it is clear that members of the Roma community are ready to work, change established opinions about themselves and want to be educated.

They do not blame only society and the state.

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed all existing problems and exacerbated them even more dramatically. Judging by the conversations carried on by the ORS activists, it is clear that Roma are confused, scared, frustrated and worried. Why simply not say they feel forgotten. Jelena Reljić, Stevica Nikolić and Stevan Gligorin talk about that for Novi magazin.

TRUTH: Jelena Reljić persists that Roma problems have been ignored for too long. When asked what was different for Roma in their community from other residents of Serbia, she said that during the pandemic, it was assumed that everyone had basic living conditions, so the recommendations were to wash our hands, keep the distance … But how to wash your hands when there is no water and sewage system? How to keep the distance in small and dilapidated houses? Because of such living conditions, it is generally known that we are more susceptible to all health risks and chronic diseases, especially lung, cardiovascular, malignant diseases, diabetes and asthma, as indicated by the data from the Strategy for Social Inclusion of Roma men and women.

Our people do not go to see the doctor and this is more noticeable in the scope of institutional discrimination which the coronavirus has increased. The state does not keep ethnic data on the number of infected and dead from this virus, which would later make it difficult to adopt social policy measures for the most endangered. Noticing this problem, the Opra Roma Serbia movement worked on a field research using limited sample. According to the research conducted in 14 municipalities in Serbia in June 2020, we found that there was a significant number of infected and people who died from COVID- 19. Especially in Vladičin Han, where the virus caused catastrophic consequences to our people in the Roma settlement. It is important to emphasize that these data are limited and unofficial due to the lack of government instruments which could provide exact data.

The state strategy recognizes poor infrastructure in Roma settlements and says that in 38 % of Roma settlements no housing is connected to water, and more than 70 % is not connected to the sewerage network, although the right to water is explicitly protected as a special human right. Having this in mind, washing hands and following the basic preventive measures as recommended was a luxury for the Roma community.

According to the UNDP, that evaluated in its research the work done by Roma in the formal and informal sector, there are two to three times ferwer Roma people employed and even ten times fewer Roma women, when compared to the majority population. According to the data of the Statistical Office, which are presented in the Strategy for Social Inclusion of Roma men and women, the unemployment rate of Roma community is 80 %, and the data taken into account are only jobs performed in the formal economy.

CONFLICTS: We ask Stevica Nikolić, an ORS activist, why he thinks that interethnic conflicts have intensified.

Due to the bad situation in the country, there is an increase in hate speech against Roma; there is a deep mistrust, because Roma have been pushed to the situation to disrespect certain measures such as quarantine on their own responsibility. Fadil Grek told us about one such example where his neighbors, collectors of secondary raw materials, needed to leave home on weekends during curfew to look for some food or raw material they could cash. His neighbors were fined for violating the measures, and they also witnessed the brutality of the police officers as well as shouts and insults by the people who saw them from their balconies.

Informal workers (musicians, traders, collectors of secondary raw materials), whose work depends on social relations and living in public space, have been prevented from working, and some still are. The online learning programme has made it impossible for Roma children to follow, because there is often no electricity in their informal settlements. Sonny Sitash from the settlement of Bangladesh in Novi Sad, said in an interview for our movement that since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 100 children from his settlement did not attend classes, and it was worrying that the vast majority of those children moved on to the next grade although they did not obtain adequate knowledge. His concern was that children would face the fact that they did not have enough knowledge to keep up with their classmates due to missed lessons, and that this would affect their further education and relationships with peers.

HOW TO GET THE VACCINE: How will Roma immunization be achieved?

In order to achieve complete immunization, according to the words of the Crisis Response Team, it is necessary to immunize all citizens of the Republic of Serbia. Application for immunization is done through the eGovernment and call center.

Having conversations with people from the field, we noticed that there is a huge amount of misinformation and that in a large part of the community the topic of vaccination is not a topic at all (whether due to a lack of information, or due to the struggle for existence, or a combination of the two). Milan Nikolić from Srbobran answered the question “What are your biggest fears about vaccination?”, by saying that he thought that this was a biological war, that he read a lot about it on Facebook and that a lot of information he got that way made him upset. Then, Ištvan Balog from Apatin was worried that he had no information and he did not know whether diabetics and epileptics could be vaccinated.

A large part of the community agreed with the idea of Fadil Kurtić from Vladičin Han, who believes that it is necessary to approach the Roma community in a more inclusive way through doctor’s visits to settlements, through info-sessions, through printing materials in Romani or by Romani doctors who will talk with them, so the Roma community would be provided with the best possible support and quality information on the basis of which they would be able to judge and make their own decisions regarding vaccination. Then, many of them worry about whether vaccination will affect freedom of movement, and thus work in the country and abroad, whether the vaccine is safe for children and pregnant women, for how long they will be immunized after vaccination and what is the difference between the vaccines.

For example, Salko Habibović from Tutin believes that a large part of the Roma community has a problem with understanding public address by experts and the Crisis Response Team regarding vaccination because many do not understand the professional terminology they use.

Is there any conclusion you reached from the research on what the Roma expect from the state?

When asked by our activists what the state should do specifically regarding the immunization of the Roma community, Goran Vasić from Valjevo responded: „The state should talk directly and concretely with the Roma community and give information about vaccination, ask about their previous illnesses, preventive measures before and after vaccination. Can they guarantee that there will be no side effects?”. Milica Begić from Varvarin believes that the state should first make sure that people are informed and know how to apply, so she suggests a solution:” It is necessary to set up stands near the Roma communities where Roma will be able to get information about vaccination.”

Our movement tried to find the answer to some of these questions in the public dialogue, the first one since the beginning of pandemic, with the most responsible persons for crisis management and the immunization process – with Minister Marija Obradović and Dr. Predrag Kon.

The conclusion of the dialogue was that Serbia could not be immunized without Roma. It was also confirmed that coronavirus is a disease that affects everyone, and that we, the Roma, as part of this society, were not part of the decision made by “everyone”, so it causes intolerance, mistrust and fear among our people.

NOTE: This project is financially supported by the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Belgrade. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the views of the Royal Norwegian Embassy, the Balkan Endowment for Democracy, the German Marshall Fund of the United States or its partners.

VACCINATION CONFUSION

Jelena Reljić, ORS activist

Data from our research “Can Serbia be immunized without the Roma community” from January 2021 indicate that out of 1,383 respondents, 43% are informed about the virus via the Internet, and only 22% through the “Batut” Institute. Regarding the readiness of the respondents to be vaccinated, 52% would not wish to be vaccinated, and those who would wish to be vaccinated would prefer the Russian vaccine (41%). Of course, this is not a representative sample, but these data showed us at least a small picture of reality.

We are aware that the coronavirus caused a difficult situation for everyone, but we must not ignore that it had stronger impact on some people than on others. Confidence in institutions is even weaker than before; children who were supposed to build the future of the Roma community and Serbia are backward.

 

WHAT CAN THE STATE DO?

In order to preserve the health of the citizens of Serbia and to fully recover the economy as soon as possible, it is important to acquire collective immunity, which acoording to many, practically means immunization of the entire population. This is especially important for the Roma community in Serbia, which is an indispensable segment of society that is significantly negatively affected by health and economy due to, on avarege, the much weaker starting position in both respects. Most Roma still live in substandard settlements and work in the informal economy, which means living in a public space (musicians, traders, collectors of secondary raw materials). This practically means that it is almost impossible to apply preventive measures of protection and that most Roma have lost their sources of income these days. A certain number of people still do not have access to credible information, there is no way to apply for vaccination because they neither have internet nor electricity. A certain number of people do not even have personal documents, without which it is impossible to register. These are all challenges that directly or indirectly affect Roma in the context of applying for vaccination. The state does not want to ignore these problems, but to respond to them with a responsible approach. A responsible approach, for a start, implies understanding all the specifics that these facts create. Therefore, the state wants to strengthen the dialogue with the Roma community, but also its participation in solving problems. That is why, in cooperation with the Opra Roma Movement Serbia (ORS), we organized a public dialogue between representatives of the Crisis Response Team and the Roma community.

The dialogue aimed to better understanding of why there is hesitation among Roma regarding vaccination and to understand what it takes to work better and more efficiently as a country to fight this virus, but also how to use all resources in this fight and the potentials we have. We concluded that many challenges are not something we can solve without the participation of other ministries, local self-government units and the Roma themselves. Our ministry is ready to include into the process, the ORS, Roma medical workers and all those who are ready to take greater responsibility for their country and for the Roma community. We are ready to go out on the field because that is how we will reach the largest number of people. We are ready to adjust certain mechanisms so that the application system is accessible to everyone. Our goal is to simply provide an opportunity for all citizens of Serbia who want to be vaccinated to do so.

Stevan Gligorin, State Secretary at the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government