A call for reparations for Roma slavery

Reparations for historical injustices should extend to the Roma, who were slave laborers in parts of Romania for nearly 500 years, say two human rights researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Roma slavery has left a legacy of troubling consequences, including poverty, homelessness, limited access to fundamental social and economic rights, social marginalization, statelessness, and persistent discrimination and stigma, according to an April 22, 2016 article in Foreign Policy In Focus by two experts from Harvard Chan School’s FXB Center for Health & Human Rights: Margareta Matache, instructor, and Jacqueline Bhabha, director of research.

Matache and Bhabha called for “meaningful and enduring reparations” involving “social, political, and educational responses both at an institutional level and as a contribution enacted by ordinary citizens playing a role in whatever way they can to reverse the effects of past wrongs.”