A key element of our work during the past year has been to contribute to national policy development and to lobby for change. We, along with the London Gypsy Traveller Unit and the Irish Traveller Movement, are members of the Traveller Law Reform Project, which aims to bring about positive changes in the laws in relation to the rights and needs of all the Traveller communities, and monitor the implementation of current legislation.
We also provided administrative support to the All Party Parliamentary Group for Gypsy and Traveller Law Reform in this annual report year, which is a parliamentary group committed to raising the social inclusion of Travellers and improving relations between the settled and Traveller community. The group currently has forty two members. Meetings this annual report year have included meeting with the then minister with responsibility for Gypsy and Traveller issues (Shahid Malik) and the Equalities and Human Rights Commission.
We are members of the Ministry of Justice’s Independent Hate Crime Advisory Group as Gypsies and Travellers have been identified by the government as a group which is disproportionately affected by hate crime and who have received less attention and intervention in the past, and the aim is to redress this.
We are also members of Sussex Police’s Independent Gypsy and Traveller Advisory Group, which we helped set up, and which has been a very successful forum to discuss policing of the Travelling community and reductions in actions such as Section 61 evictions by the police, potential tensions round large Gypsy funerals and the burning of fires, markers on Gypsy/Traveller vehicles, stop and searches, and other pertinent issues.
This year we held the first ever national conference on domestic violence and the Travelling communities. We had over 200 attendees from all over the country and there was open and honest discussion about this often hidden and taboo subject.
We will continue to work with partner organizations and in our own right to try to achieve fairness and equality for all Gypsies and Travellers.
Emma Nuttall
Advice and Policy Manager
