February 22 (SeeNews) - The Roma population and sexual minorities continue to experience systemic discrimination in Romania, while domestic violence against women is still a serious issue in the country, non-governmental organisation focusing on human rights Amnesty International said.
In its April report, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights called on Romanian authorities to acknowledge the severe discrimination against Roma, Amnesty International said in the 2016/2017 edition of its report The State of the World’s Human Rights published on Tuesday.
Romania should implement the 2015-2020 Roma Inclusion Strategy and take targeted measures in education, health care and employment, including the introduction of legal safeguards against forced evictions and improved access to social housing, it added.
Sexual minorities also experience discrimination in Romania, the Commission said. However, the country made some progress by submitting to the Parliament a law regarding the legality of civil unions. Currently, according to Romanian Civil Code, same-sex marriages and civil unions were prohibited and those contracted abroad not recognized.
In July, the Constitutional Court allowed the proposal to be put to Parliament to decide on whether or not to hold a national referendum. The decision remains pending.
On the other hand, the Coalition for Family – a group of some 30 associations and foundations – ran a campaign until May to put forward a legislative proposal to restrict the constitutional definition of “family” from “marriage between spouses” to “marriage between a man and a woman”.
Amnesty International's report also showed that Romania should tackle domestic violence, as data from the General Police Inspectorate data showed that 8,926 cases of domestic violence were registered in the first six months of 2016. Some 79% of the victims were women and 92.3% of the aggressors were men.
However, national NGOs reported that the actual number of cases was much higher, Amnesty noted. In July, several NGOs requested that the government expedite the adoption of measures to combat violence against women and domestic violence, it added.