Allison Hulmes, Senior Lecturer in Social Work, shares Romani history, past and contemporary struggles, and a call for allyship.
International Romani Day, which takes place each year on 8th April, is a day for celebrating the Romani people, our history, culture, and ethnic identity. It’s also an opportunity to shine a light on the issues that affect Romani people in the UK and internationally, not least the continued racism, stereotyping, and inequality gaps in health, education, and housing.
We have officially celebrated International Romani Day since 1990 when it was decided during the 4th meeting of the World Romani Congress in Poland. The roots of this important day can be traced however to a meeting of international Romani representatives in London in 1971, a meeting which is now accepted as the first-ever World Romani Congress.
During meetings of the World Romani Congress, delegates discuss key issues for Romani people. The primary issues remain linked to human rights and advancement our in civil society, the preservation of Romani culture and dialects, our identity as a minority of Indian origin, and ensuring that the Roma and Sinti Holocaust is never forgotten.
International Romani Day Timeline
1,500 Years Ago
The Exodus: The Roma start leaving northern India.
1100s
Arriving in Europe: Roma groups begin to arrive in medieval Europe.
1971
World Romani Congress: Twenty-three representatives from nine different nations attend the first World Romani Congress in the United Kingdom.
1990
An Official Declaration: Delegates at the fourth World Romani Congress in Poland officially declare April 8 as the International Day of the Romani People.
Map of Romani Migration
License & Copyright
Map uploaded by Arienne King, published on 26 January 2023. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike.
The Map shows the movement of the Romani people between approximately 500 and 1500 CE. The dates used on this map are commonly accepted approximations based on historical accounts and linguistic evidence. Some dates, such as the timeframe in which Romani speakers moved out of the Indian subcontinent, can only be loosely estimated based on linguistic and genetic research.
An increasingly hostile environment
It is important to know that British Gypsies are a legally protected ethnicity for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 and are therefore protected from discrimination based on our ethnicity.
“The Equality Act 2010 says you must not be discriminated against because of your race. In the Equality Act, race can mean your colour, or your nationality (including your citizenship). It can also mean your ethnic or national origins. Race also covers ethnic and racial groups. This means a group of people who all share the same protected characteristic of ethnicity or race. A racial group can be made up of two or more distinct racial groups, for example black Britons, British Asians, British Sikhs, British Jews, Romany Gypsies and Irish Travellers.”
In the UK, Romani people are more familiarly known as Romany Gypsies (although our European Roma Brothers and Sisters have been settling in the UK since the early 1980s) and despite an increasingly hostile environment since the implementation of Part 4 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 there have been some moments of light in the advancement of human rights for British Gypsies. In September 2022 the Court of Appeal decided that the 2015 planning definition of Gypsies and Travellers in England, was discriminatory.
“The 2015 planning definition states that Gypsies and Travellers who have permanently stopped travelling for work due to a disability, long-term health condition or age will not get planning permission to stop on their own land and will not have their accommodation needs assessed and met through this policy.”
This judgement is a victory for the tenacity of Lisa Smith who initiated the case, the organisations and legal teams who supported the action, and significantly, for human rights in the UK at a time when state sanctioned oppression under the present Government in the UK, seems determined to take a steam roller to our fundamental rights and freedoms.
As an ethnic Romani Gypsy and a Social Worker, I ask you to honour our important day by learning more about us and defending our human rights by standing alongside us in allyship and solidarity.
Allison Hulmes is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Swansea University and a co-founding member of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Social Work Association.
