Today is International Women’s Equality Day. The day turns 100 years today. The International Romani Union - IRU wants to support and celebrate today all Roma women around the world! Together we are strong! IRU wants to promote Roma women's economic independence and Roma women's well being in all ways.
Today, the Roma Times wants to celebrate Women’s Equality Day and present one exemplary Romani woman, Giulia di Rocco. Italian Roma woman Giulia di Rocco is a Commissioner for Democracy and Domestic Policy of IRU. She is a human rights activist, legal assistant and lawyer.
- I am an Italian Romani human rights activist who fights against double discrimination, as a woman and as a Roma. In fact in Italy even if there is equality between men and women, in practice it is not so: There are from 10 jobs men 9 and only one woman. For us Roma women, inequality is even more marked. Italian Roma women are precluded from any possibility of social equality. We women activists struggle with great difficulties.
- I would like the IRU to give more space to the Roma women who are many today. The Roma women create an active network to support women who are discriminated against and also victims of violence not only physically but also economically. That is, without any financial possibilities. It is necessary to do more conferences for women and also legal protection.
Mrs. Di Rocco collaborates with 4 legal offices in Italy against Roma discrimination. She collaborates with CIDU Italia (International Court for Human Rights) and with ERRC (European Roma Rights Center) and she is a member of the RSC Forum (Roma, Sinti e Camminanti) established by UNAR - Anti-racal discrimination office at the Ministry of Equal Opportunities of the Italian Government.
She is a member of the board of UCI - Union of Romanes Communities in Italy and President of the Amici di Zefferino association and the ROMANì KRISS association.
Giulia is a cultural mediator at schools and universities and also a creator of the Italian female Roma movement ROMANI PINA - Roma Sisters. She is a protagonist in the short film "GIULIA" auto biographical film that talks about the discrimination of Roma women at school. Giulia is the only Italian Roma to represent the Roma for 3 consecutive years for the Day of Remembrance at the Italian Government. She donated the Roma flag to the President of the Italian republic, to the Pope and to the Government (Ministry of Equal Opportunities and Ministry of Education) in Poland for August 2nd in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Mrs. di Rocco is in the political party PD (Democratic Party) the only Roma woman and a coordinator of women's democrats. She collaborates with Avokato Rromano in France. And she also has time to write poems in Romani language.
Happy Women's Equality Day to all the wonderful Romani women!
