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Portrait 4

Sevda, the First Who Took Roma’s Fight Against Racism To Court

17 07 2007  As new anti-discrimination act kicks in, shops and businesses no longer get away so easily with routine abuse and harassment.

By Tatyana Vaksberg in Sofia

“Robbers! Get out of here now!” the shopkeeper shouted. A second earlier she had been all smiles, servicing her customers. Now she was in frenzy.

None of the customers reacted, having grasped what she was up to. She was shouting and yelling because she didn’t want any Roma in her shop. “Could you wait for a second, until I throw these three out?” she went on to push the unwanted customers outside and firmly closed the door. Then she was back to her nice smiles.

Sevda Nenova, 33, was one of the three Roma’s expelled from the store on a winter’s day in late 2003. She had been shopping for clothes with her friend Zoya and while looking for stockings, they had entered the shop in Sofia.

“It all happened so quickly,” she recalled. “A man with a child, also of Roma origin, had entered shortly before us. When I heard the shopkeeper shouting, I thought the man had provoked her with something he did or said. Then I realized she was also shouting at me!”

The woman had been very abusive, shouting: “Look at you! What a smell! And you do nothing but steal!"

After Nenova was pushed outside, her friend, frozen with shock, remained inside. Her light skin and hair had rendered Zoya’s Roma origins invisible to the shopkeeper. But recalling her friend’s humiliation, she wept later on.

The two women’s experience that day was sadly typical of the kind of harassment that the Roma community continues to endure in Bulgaria.
However, it was the first such case that was settled in court, and which they won. In 2004 the Bulgarian courts awarded the plaintiffs 600 leva, worth 300 euros, in compensation for the distress they had suffered.

The US State Department and the Council of Europe have reported an increase in the number of cases of discrimination reported by Roma in Bulgaria who make up between 4.6 and 7 per cent of population.

At the same time human rights watchdogs hail the recent breakthroughs made in Bulgaria’s courts in prosecuting such cases.

Three years after her expulsion from the clothes store, Nenova is expecting a ruling of the Supreme Cassation Court on the case that she won in a first-instance court.

The owners of Vali Ltd, the company running the shop, had became the first persons to be convicted under the newly adopted Protection from Discrimination Act. If the higher court confirms the original ruling, as expected, it will become final.

The racist shopkeeper was unlucky when she chased Nenova from the store. Many members of the Roma community would never dream of filing a court case over such a situation. Nor did Nenova, at first. But at the time she was working at the office of Romani Bah, an organization for protection of Roma human rights. Her colleagues suggested that she took action and convinced her to return to the shop, bringing along witnesses.

When the same shopkeeper repeated the abuse with almost macabre precision Nenova had the witnesses she needed and with their testimonies was able to go to court.

Since then, this technique has become the main working method of similar to Nenova’s organization. At her current one - the Equal Opportunities Initiative, a team verifies each complaint on the ground. The organization has begun more than 30 court cases against offices, shops, companies and institutions.

For years, human rights organizations had focused on violations of minority’s rights by Bulgarian institutions. Their main concern was segregation at school and police abuse.

The work of the Equal Opportunities Initiative has changed this trend. Their lawyer, Daniela Mihaylova, has a long list of companies that have been already convicted of discrimination against individuals.

A Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet, for instance, was found guilty by a first instance court for refusing to deliver an order to Sofia’s Roma quarter. That case, too, is now awaiting a final ruling. A major food company Lyubimka, which produces pastries, was also sentenced to pay 600 leva in compensation for discriminative employment practices. Similar cases are ongoing against two other companies in the food industry, Kenar and Detelina.

Daniela Mihaylova says much remains to be done. She can cite the names of restaurants where waiters routinely shut the doors against clients with dark skins and taxi companies that refuse to serve customers from the Roma quarter.

Only three years ago, Nenova would have been unable to sue the shop, as the Protection from Discrimination Act had not come into force. Two years ago, cases filed under its provisions were still a rarity. Now more than 60 complaints have been filed of which the plaintiffs have won more than half at the first or second instance court.

Bulgaria’s Helsinki Committee, a fierce critic of official failures in the field of human rights, admits that the Commission for Protection from Discrimination, an independent body established to monitor the application of the Act, is functioning well.

To obtain justice in court is of crucial importance. But it only partially compensates for the continuing humiliation that many members of the Roma community face in daily life.

From their earliest years, members of the community are continually reminded of their separate and inferior position in society. Sitting with Nenova in her two-room house, in the mainly Roma Faculteta quarter in Sofia, her nephew Emo, runs in. “It is nice at my new kindergarten group,” he says. At his old one he recalls that the children called him “a negro”. He used to cry, he says, because “this is a bad word, it means you are black”.

Nenova does not think the battle is over even if she finally wins her case. “What satisfaction can a court victory bring if nothing changes?” she asks. “I am suing the owner of one small company, while children are massively discriminated at kindergartens.”

But she hopes that systematic work of the type performed by her organization will slowly yield results and diminish prejudice against the Roma minority. “Often we see job announcements, seeking a man with higher education, below 30 years old,” Nenova says. “When we call, if they tell us they will not hire Roma people, we file a complaint”.

The trouble is that it’s a slow process. It is quicker to win court rulings than change ancient popular prejudices. In the shop, Nenova recalls the indifference on the faces of the other customers when she was being abused. They cannot be tried for doing nothing to help.

“You are not welcome amongst white men if you have dark skin,” she says. “That shopkeeper did not even recognize me when I went back. To the likes of her we are all the same.”


Tatyana Vaksberg is a journalist for Radio Liberty in Sofia and a regular contributor to Balkan Insight. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s online publication.

This article was created with the support of the US State Department and is part of the special package “Minorities in Bulgaria.”