Roma women fight against environmental racism!

There is a certain misbelief that ecology is a white middle-class struggle, organized and maintained by educated city elites. Insofar as lower class or racialized people are included, it is mostly in the form of benevolent but paternalistic policy decisions that should aid them without necessarily including them in the climate struggle.

This is obviously misleading, since those who are hit hardest by climate change know more than most how urgent the battle for climate justice is. The intersection between racism, poverty and climate change has often been demonstrated. Structural racism segregates racialized groups in dangerous locations with lots of health and climate hazards. The lives of these groups are deemed less worthy in the racist politics of the state than others, and thus racialized communities are often ignored in climate policies on a national or supranational lever in favor of an abstract CO2-emission reduction.

Roma Women of Vojvodina

Roma Women of Vojvodina will not stand idly by while their families are already suffering from climate catastrophe. The Vojvodina province is notorious for its poor water quality: 40 percent of its inhabitants drink water contaminated with toxic substances such as arsenic, the active ingredient in rat poison. This percentage might be higher in the Roma communities of Vojvodina, since they live in the poorer regions of the province.

The activists are determined to mobilize the Roma community to fight for climate justice: better drinking water. For them, climate change is already a human rights issue. The Roma activists aim to mobilize their community to protect their environment, organize direct actions against the biggest polluters and demand better living conditions in the present and the future.

Het Actiefonds is proud to support Roma Women of Vojvodina.