ISSN 2411-9563 (Print) ISSN 2312-8429 (Online) European Journal of Social Sciences Education and Research January-April 2015 Volume 2, Issue 1 73 The protection of the rights of Roma community, social policies and Albanian legal and institutional framework for their implementation Irma Baraku Commissioner for Protection from Discrimination, Albania irma_baraku@yahoo.com Entela Hoxhaj University of Shkodra "Luigj Gurakuqi", Albania enhoxhaj@yahoo.com Abstract A considerable number of minorities, including Roma, live in Albania. The improvement of legislation and policies on minorities is one of the measures that our country has projected to take within the five priorities of the European Commission to Albania. Albania has approved legislation in conformity with international acts and has established mechanisms for the protection from discrimination of Roma people. The protection of minorities is guaranteed by the Albanian Constitution and the laws that provide for the respect of their rights. Albania has a large institutional framework for the protection of the rights of Roma people. The recognition of these institutions has a fundamental importance in realizing the protection of their rights. Each institution has its part of responsibility but the cooperation and coordination between them is essential to providing the best possible results. For the implementation of strategic documents that were adopted in our country is required cooperation and coordination of actions between central and local government. The issue of housing, the access to the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights, the promotion of the employment of Roma, remain significant problems. The equality bodies face three challenges in dealing with cases of discrimination against Roma: (i) positive measures, (ii) strengthening of NGOs in decision-making, (iii) service respect to diversity and promoting equality. Keywords: minorities, discrimination, equality, human rights. Introduction The treatment of the Roma as a minority within the Albanian society, since the beginning, is faced with a lack of the legal definition of ‘minority’ in both levels, international and domestic legislation. There were difficulties in determining a general definition for the ‘minorities’ because of their diversity and in setting the consolidated features for their determination. When referring to the protection of the rights of the Roma community, we will address the raised issues in accordance with the definition of ‘racial discrimination’ given by ECRI, according to which we are dealing with ‘the different treatment based on ethnicity, origin, color, nationality, religion, and language’ (ECRI General Policy Recommendation No. 7, par. 1 / b, c). While the European Convention on Human Rights gives a broader meaning to the concept of ‘ethnic and racial’ by explicitly including the ‘nationality’; this approach is different from that given by the EU legislation, because the Directive on Racial Equality expressly excludes ‘nationality’ from the concept of ‘race’ or ‘ethnicity’. However, the jurisprudence has shown that nationality can be understood as a component of ethnicity (FRA, July 2010, p. 79). In Albania, although the internal legislation does not have a legal definition of ‘minority’, there are two types of minoriti es: i. National, ethnic minorities (Greek minority, Macedonian minority, and Serbs-Montenegrin minority). ii. Ethno-linguistic minorities (Vlach minority and Roma minority). However, in reality there are other communities such as the Bosnian, Egyptian, and Gorani. In this paper, we are focused on the sensitive issue of respecting the Roma community rights. According to Census 2011, conducted by INSTAT, it results that the total number of population in the Republic of Albania is 2.800.138 inhabitants, among which minorities are 52.700 individuals; these minorities represents about 1,9 % of the total population. The debate over the exact number of individuals belonging to the Roma community has been constant.