CONTACT POINT FOR ROMA AND SINTI ISSUES Cristina Marian, young Roma activist and lawyer from Moldova, and ODIHR Junior Expert on Roma and Sinti youth issues at OSCE’s Roma and Sinti Youth Conference in Belgrade, Serbia, 8 December. OSCE/Edvard Molnar Michael Georg Link (r), with Ambassador Miroslava Beham, the OSCE Senior Adviser on Gender Issues (l), speaks at a Roma and Sinti women consultation meeting hosted by ODIHR CPRSI as part of the OSCE Gender Equality Conference in Vienna, 10 July. OSCE communities. ODIHR also supported the participation of Roma and Sinti women activists in the 2014 Human Dimension Implementation Meeting. structures to assist participating States in addressing the existing challenges in the area of Roma and Sinti and policing and to promote policing in Roma and Sinti communities at the local level. The summary of the report was published in June. Security of Roma and Sinti Communities Violence and racist attacks threatening Roma and Sinti communities remained a concern for ODIHR in 2014, and were addressed in a number of ODIHR activities aimed at strengthening the security of Roma and Sinti in the OSCE area. These activities included work on building trust between police and Roma and Sinti at the local level, and enhancing the existing co-operation between ODIHR, the High Commissioner on National Minorities and the OSCE Transnational Threats/Strategic Police Matters Unit, as illustrated by the expert meeting on “Police and Roma and Sinti: Current Challenges and Good Practices in Building Trust and Understanding”, organized in Warsaw on 8 April to mark International Roma Day. The expert meeting brought together 19 participants with experience in community policing, the human rights challenges faced by Roma and Sinti in the context of policing, curriculum development for policing in multi-ethnic communities and addressing hate crimes. The participants included representatives of national law-enforcement agencies and related institutions; civil society organizations, including those specializing in Roma and Sinti issues; and experts on policing. In addition, the expert meeting provided a platform for discussions about a future roadmap for the three OSCE 62 ODIHR Annual Report 2014 Together with the High Commissioner on National Minorities, the OSCE Transnational Threats/Strategic Police Matters Unit and several independent experts, ODIHR also conducted a joint field assessment visit to Slovakia from 26 to 31 October. The visit focused on the issue of security of Roma in ­Slovakia, assessing the relations between police and Roma communities in the country, and included meetings with representatives of national and local authorities in Bratislava, Košice and Prešov regions. The report on the field visit will be published in the spring of 2015. ODIHR raised awareness of human rights challenges with regard to policing in Roma and Sinti communities at a conference on ethnic profiling organized by the Swedish Equality Ombudsman in Stockholm on 21 November, and at the Regional Conference on Police Reform organized by the OSCE Mission to Skopje and the Ministry of Interior on 26 and 27 November. At both events ODIHR promoted the manual on Police and Roma and Sinti: Good Practices in Building Trust and Understanding. Roma and Sinti Genocide Within the context of combatting racism and discrimination, ODIHR remains engaged in raising