The human rights of minority women : challenging international discourses with the case of Romani women

Abstract

This thesis explores the complexities surrounding the human rights of minority women. With analytical focus on Romani women in Europe it seeks to contribute with new insight into the grey areas of rights issues, where groups within special rights categories share different human rights concerns, by being both women and members of a minority group. Through an investigation of how contemporary human rights law and politics serve to address the concerns of Romani women, the thesis sheds light on the challenges that the Romani women’s issue presents to international human rights discourses. These challenges go beyond the Romani issue only and into larger issues of women and minorities. It raises questions as to whether the traditional separation between categories of gender and race/ethnicity within the international community, in practice becomes a gap that isolates minority women from the human rights attention that they claim. It is argued that in order to strengthen the validity of human rights in the lives of Romani women, as a framework that ensures their full and equal protection, a new international discourse must gain ground, where special attention is given to interrelated grounds and forms of discrimination. This thesis introduces “intersectionality” as a concept to frame such new discourses on the human rights of minority women.