Roma in Europe: organising against exclusion

Historical persecution and contemporary structural exclusion

Roma were targeted for genocide under Nazi rule. Today the pressure is structural exclusion, not killing.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia, Genocide of European Roma (Gypsies), 1939–1945; FRA reports (2022, 2025) on contemporary exclusion.

The pressure

Pushed out

The Council of Europe Commissioner named forced evictions in Italy, France, Bulgaria and Hungary in 2016. ERRC recorded more than 129 evictions affecting at least 696 people in Italy during 2021–2025. The older source is not evidence of current conditions in all four countries.

Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, European countries must stop forced evictions of Roma (16 February 2016); ERRC, Census of Forced Evictions of Roma in Italy: 2021–2025 (19 December 2025).

Squeezed out

In FRA's 2024 survey, 70% of Roma and Travellers lived in poverty, four times the general rate, and 32% had completed upper secondary education against 84% of the general population. The 47% housing measure combined damp, dark dwellings or housing without proper sanitation; it was not a sanitation-only measure.

FRA, Rights of Roma and Travellers in 13 European countries: perspectives from the Roma Survey 2024 (October 2025).

Worn down

The Commission described antigypsyism as the root cause of Roma exclusion. FRA's 2024 survey reported discrimination affecting 31% and hate-motivated harassment affecting 19%.

European Commission, COM(2024) 422 final (25 September 2024); FRA, Roma Survey 2024 (October 2025).

What people did

  • Roma organisations pursued litigation, education programmes, cultural documentation and political participation.
  • The European Roma Rights Centre challenged evictions and segregation.

What held

Distinct cultural identities and organisations continued despite pressure.

What didn't

Formal rights and legal advocacy did not remove structural exclusion in housing, education and employment.

What you can borrow

Sources

The Holocaust Encyclopedia article was last edited on 24 July 2023; this is not its first-publication date. FRA's 2021 survey (published 2022) and 2024 survey (published 2025) are different datasets. Eviction claims are dated by country and source.