REACTION ON THE INFORMATION PUBLISHED IN THE MEDIA REGARDING THE REMOVAL OF THE IMPROVISED HOUSES OF ROMA PEOPLE THAT LIVE UNDER THE BRIDGE BLIZNAKThe First Children’s Embassy in the World-Megjashi sent a reaction to the media regarding the information published in the media by the Municipality of Aerodrom, regarding the removal of the improvised houses of Roma people that live under the bridge Bliznak.

 In the media the Municipality of Aerodrom addressed to the institutions and civil society organizations and asked them to help solve this issue, but they see their role only as demolishers of the improvised houses. They stated that the people living there have been outcaste from the settlements Gazi Baba and Kisela Voda, but they didn’t mention the fact that part of the families live in that area for more that 5 years. They live there and when the Municipality demolishes their houses they only change the place but they are still in that so called Cardboard Settlement.

In 2005 Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs brought the Strategy for Roma in Macedonia in which one of the aims is the improvement of the living conditions throughout inclusion in the urbanity plans for the settlements that are not included and avoiding ghettoization. Following this aims as priorities in the sphere of housing the following priorities have been set:

-solving the issue about the possession of houses and the land they are using (legalization) and finding constructive and permanent solutions,

-local authorities should organize specialized trainings for the administrative workers in order to improve their professional cooperativeness and efficiency in providing services to the citizens in the area of housing,

-creating founds for small loans or donations for building or outbuilding for the most jeopardized categories,

-setting the minimum standards for building appropriate houses,

-building larger number of social housings.

From these priorities more obligations come up for the state to implement such as avoiding violent removal or other forms that cause homelessness. In the cases where the removal is necessary it should be amortizes with other subsidiary measures: using legal guarantees for rights’ protection, as well as enabling choices for other alternative accommodation.

With this constant demolishing the regular child development is disabled and many of the children’s rights are broken. The Children’s Embassy emphasized that the problem will not be solved this way, we only cause new problems with demolishment. The condition with the houses in the so called Cardboard Settlement should be solved in accordance with the Strategy for Roma people. This issue asks for involvement of many institutions but not in the way the Municipality of Aerodrom suggests.