On this occasion, President Damjanovic expressed gratitude to the President of the AI ​​Z.O. Carla Osella, who once again showed great effort and concern for solving one of the biggest problems of the Roma people- the issue of housing.

According to many international documents, housing is stated as human right in the International Treaty on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (UN General Assembly Resolution, December 1966), where Article 11 states that the countries signing this Treaty recognize the right of every individual to a standard of living sufficient/decent for him and his family, including sufficiency in food, clothing and housing, as well as the constant improvement of living conditions.

Furthermore, President Damjanovic stated that in the amended European Social Charter (Council of Europe, 1996), the new Article 31 states that the parties undertake measures to ensure the effective realization of the right to housing, which aim to: (1) improving the available housing (residential) of an appropriate standard; (2) preventing and reducing homelessness, in order to gradually surpass it; (3) forming housing prices affordable to those without sufficient resources.

Considering that the majority of participants in the discussions stated that there are double standards of discrimination and resolution of Roma housing issues, Damjanovic reminded of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Chlidren Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Status of Refugees, the International Convention on the Protection of Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, etc.

Most importantly, Damjanović reminded of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948, Vienna, Paris, the Strasbourg Declaration on the Roma, the Copenhagen Declaration, and the 1950 Rome Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which guarantees the right to live for all citizens regardless of race, religion or nationality.

On the topic "Roma and Sinti people: The Right to Housing", President Jovan Damjanovic said that the World Roma Organization has organized a team and has adopted an action plan and strategy for resolving housing issues in the region and beyond, and that the WRO, with its team of Roma architects, engineers and designers, led by a graduated engineer in architecture, David Romano, has developed type projects for apartments of 60-80 m² for multi-member families.

Regarding this, the World Roma Organization has already conducted some interviews with representatives of the European Community in charge of Roma inclusion within the 2020 Strategy for solving Roma housing issues.

World Roma Organization is also aware of the problem that there are camps in certain countries, members of the European community, which the Roma live in very difficult, in unsanitary conditions, as well as in unbearable conditions due to the lack of basic structures for normal life.

Citizens of the camps in Naples have addressed the president of the WRO and his team in order to talk with certain structures of the state of Italy to improve their living conditions.

The team included: Bajram Haliti, Secretary General of the WRO; and Roma graduate engineer, architect David Romano, Vice-President of the Parliament of the World Roma Organization.

Belgrade,

May 24th, 2018

Secretariat for information