Legal Identity for All: Facilitating Access to Civil Documentation for Roma Communities in Ukraine

About the project

Ensuring universal access to legal identity remains one of the most acute challenges for Roma communities in Ukraine. Due to a complex of structural and social barriers, a significant part of Roma do not have birth certificates or passports, which limits their access to medicine, education, and social protection in wartime conditions.

The project aims to ensure full and equal access for representatives of Roma communities in Zakarpattia to civil documentation, legal protection, and public services through a comprehensive, community-oriented support system. This is achieved through individual legal support, resolution of paternity issues, conducting outreach consultations, and legal education for children.

Target Audience

Roma and their families without official documents; Roma children and youth who face barriers to accessing schools or social services; individuals who require paternity establishment; employees of Uzhhorod city school No. 14 near a compact Roma settlement. The project will also have an indirect impact on Roma leaders and mediators, local authorities, and administrative structures responsible for issuing documents.

Partners

Faculty of Law of Uzhhorod National University

Expected Results

As a result of the project's implementation, representatives of Roma communities who lack necessary documents or have an unregulated civil status will better understand document processing procedures and receive practical legal support to overcome administrative and judicial barriers.

Some project participants will be able to obtain or restore birth certificates, passports, ID cards, and other documents required to confirm identity and civil status. For certain children, issues of paternity establishment or other legal facts, upon which their right to official identity depends, will be resolved.

By obtaining documents and receiving family support, beneficiaries will have more opportunities to access education, medical care, social benefits, humanitarian aid, and other public services to which they previously had limited access.

Roma families will be better oriented in procedures for registering their place of residence, appealing to civil registration authorities, migration services, social, and other state institutions. This should reduce their reliance on incidental assistance and strengthen their ability to independently protect their rights.

Roma children involved in legal education sessions will better understand their fundamental rights, the importance of documents, and available support mechanisms. This will contribute to the formation of primary skills in legal self-awareness and seeking assistance.

Regular work by human rights defenders, representatives of the Roma community, schools, legal clinics, and state institutions will contribute to strengthening trust and more sustainable interaction between Roma families and the institutions responsible for document processing and providing public services.