47,000 in the Census, Up to 400,000 in Estimates: Ukraine’s Roma and the National Strategy

The All-Ukrainian Population Census, taken as of December 5, 2001, counted 47,587 Roma living in Ukraine — 0.1% of the population. Ukraine’s national strategy on Roma, adopted by the government in 2021, states, citing unofficial estimates from international organizations and civil society groups, that the actual figure could be 200,000 to 400,000. For the same population, there is a gap of four to eight times between the official figure and the estimates.

The strategy’s own text names the lack of up-to-date data on the number of Roma, their living conditions, and where they live as one of the challenges to taking effective action, and puts updating the statistics first among its goals. This article traces what the state identifies as challenges and what it has decided to do, drawing on the strategy, the action plan, and reports from the Council of Europe.

47,000 or 400,000, depending on how you count

In the census results tables, Roma are counted under the then-current designation “Tsyhany” (цигани). Current government documents write “Roma” (роми), or “the Roma national minority.” In Zakarpattia Oblast, for example, the figure was 14,000 (1.1% of the oblast’s population). Ukraine has held a census only once, in 2001, so this remains the most recent official figure.

ECRI’s Fifth Report gives, as reasons for this large gap between the official figure and the estimates, the fact that many people lack identity documents and are not registered with the state, that some people do not declare their ethnicity for fear of discrimination, and that Roma are sometimes mistakenly recorded as Romanian. It went on to recommend building a system for collecting statistics, based on self-identification and consent, across every field relevant to Roma integration.

The first strategy of 2013, and how it was assessed

The state first established a strategy on Roma with the “Strategy for the Protection and Integration into Ukrainian Society of the Roma National Minority to 2020,” approved by Presidential Decree No. 201 of April 8, 2013. According to ECRI’s Fifth Report, the action plan the Cabinet approved that September listed 56 measures, each with a responsible agency and a deadline, but with no budget attached.

The same report conveys the view of many stakeholders that this strategy did not achieve results and that most of the measures in the action plan remained unimplemented. The office of the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman) also wrote on its website that the strategy was formal in nature and had not achieved its goal of solving the problems Roma face. The interagency working group responsible for implementation held its first meeting only in November 2016, more than three years after the strategy was adopted.

The eight goals of the strategy to 2030

The current strategy is the “Strategy to 2030 for Promoting the Realization of the Rights and Opportunities of Persons Belonging to the Roma National Minority in Ukrainian Society,” approved by the Cabinet of Ministers in Order No. 866-r of July 28, 2021. The strategy’s own text names, as problems to be solved, the lack of identity documents, poor access to legal assistance, negative social stereotypes, high numbers of children dropping out of school, poor access to healthcare, living conditions in segregated settlements, and low employment rates. It sets eight goals.

On identity documents, the strategy itself states that, according to various estimates, 4–8% of Roma lack documents proving their identity or citizenship. It states that even more people lack other documents — birth registration, property registration, address registration, employment records — and that this is a cause of their being unable to access social security and administrative services. In conclusions published in June 2020, ECRI judged that its recommendation to waive court fees for Roma establishing their identity had not been implemented, because obtaining a fee waiver requires documentary proof of inability to pay, which is difficult for people without documents to use.

Who does what, and by when

Coordination of the strategy’s implementation falls to the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS). By Resolution No. 468 of April 19, 2022, the Cabinet established an interagency working group chaired by the head of DESS. Alongside deputy ministers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Health, and others, it includes a representative of the Human Rights Ombudsman and representatives of Roma civil society organizations, with their consent.

As a concrete action plan, the Cabinet approved a plan for 2024–2025 in Order No. 1197-r of December 22, 2023. The plan is divided into 23 items, setting deadlines and targets such as the following.

• 2025: Conduct a survey on the number of Roma, their demographics, living conditions, and settlements, and publish data broken down by sex and age. Based on the survey, create an online map showing where Roma live in concentration and the challenges each area faces
• 2024–2025: Conduct interview-based surveys on access to education, healthcare, and employment, and on the needs of those who became internally displaced
• Increase applications for free legal aid from people without identity documents to 200 in 2024 and 300 in 2025
• Oblasts and the city of Kyiv are to draw up their own regional action plans within three months

The strategy provides that each ministry and oblast is to report to DESS by January 31 each year, that DESS is to publish a consolidated report by March 31, and that an interim evaluation is to take place in 2025 and a final evaluation in 2030.

Preparations for teaching Romani in schools

Under Goal 8, the strategy calls for advancing a joint project, involving the Ministry of Education and Science, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Educational Sciences, the Council of Europe, and others, to standardize the Romani language and develop its norms in Ukraine. The 2024–2025 action plan lists the following steps toward this.

• Consultations toward approving a Romani alphabet, and preparing a basic vocabulary list and reading materials
• Piloting a Romani-language curriculum for grades 1–4, and developing materials for teaching it as an elective
• A curriculum for the elective subject “Roma Studies” (Ромознавство) for lower and middle grades
• Consultations to include the training of Romani-language teachers in the state’s medium-term forecast of workforce needs

Because Romani is not an official language of the EU, it is treated differently from Hungarian or Romanian under the rules on school languages (Article 7 of the Education Act, Article 5 of the Complete General Secondary Education Act): from grade 5 onward, at least 80% of instruction time must be in Ukrainian. Regardless of the language, the law guarantees national minorities the right to learn their own language through public schools and ethnocultural organizations. The peoples listed by law as indigenous are covered in our article on Ukraine’s indigenous peoples law.