Your Rights as a Traveller

Travellers and Gypsies first arrived in England and Wales around the end of the 14th Century; since that time they have strived to protect their culture, history and identity, and in some cases, their own language. Many of them can trace their ancestry back to the 12th Century.

Traveller or Gypsy?

Despite the obvious similarities in lifestyle; there are different groups within the travelling community as a whole:

• Gypsies are usually of Scottish, English or Welsh descent; they will have Romany ancestry.
• Scottish ‘Travellers’, a nomadic ethnic group with strong musical traditions.
• Irish Travellers, similar to Scottish Travellers with their nomadic lifestyle.
• People who, for generations, have travelled around the country with shows and circuses.
• ’New Travellers’, this is something of a misnomer as they are likely descended from travellers and may have gypsy blood.
• ’Roma People’, people that moved to the UK from Eastern and Central Europe, they usually have a strong Romany family history.

Despite this rich and varied culture, they have been the subject of extreme derision and discrimination for most of their existence, with people in the communities they visit reacting to them with nothing short of suspicion and contempt. For centuries they were excluded from education and health care systems, although they were usually able to stop on common land for short periods of time.

A Place to Stay

Despite various attempts to prevent the Gypsy groups from stopping on common land, it was in 1970 that Parliament passed a law bestowing a responsibility on local authorities to provide caravan sites for Gypsy families when they stay in their area. By giving the Authorities the responsibility the Government also publicly acknowledged the human rights of travellers to live their lives as they prefer to do; in a nomadic way.

However, in a move that is reminiscent of the American treatment of Native American Indians, the Government also eroded some of the Gypsy right to stay on common land when, in 1994, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act removed much of the duty to provide specific traveller and gypsy sites while simultaneously increasing police powers to move the families on if they park on unauthorised sites.

The Right to Education

UK Governments and Local Authorities may be eroding the gypsy right to park, but they are supporting the human right to education for all school age children, whether permanently or temporarily resident in the area. Most local authorities have a system in place to deal with the education requirements of gypsy and traveller children, this is not just a result of being nice – the law confers a duty to uphold their right to a proper education and the right to every opportunity; irrespective of their place of residence.

The Right to Healthcare

Just as the Gypsy and Traveller community has a human right to education, they also have the human right to access adequate healthcare. This may be one of the most crucial human rights that we cherish and the fact that it may not be being administered is abhorrent but, in 1995, a report by the Minority Rights Group revealed that the travelling community suffers from an alarmingly poor life expectancy, poor nutrition and a great many treatable diseases.

The reason that they may not be accessing their right to treatment could be one of many, from tradition to inadequate systems in place to enable the administration of healthcare. Whatever the cause there is a need for the traveller community to be able to access the other human rights that we cherish, such as equality, freedom from discrimination and respect. We may be an enlightened society but we need to do a lot more to look after those members of our society that choose to live a different lifestyle.