CONTACT POINT FOR ROMA AND SINTI ISSUES Agnes Osztolykan, Former Member of the Hungarian National Assembly at ODIHR’s expert meeting on effective political participation of Roma and Sinti in Warsaw, Poland, 28 November. OSCE/Murat Gungor challenges in this area, the expert meeting focused on legal frameworks that govern minority participation in the OSCE area as part of minority or mainstream parties or through minority representation systems. Furthermore, the meeting explored the challenges faced by Roma and Sinti as candidates at the local level, whether as part of minority or mainstream parties, including the relationships between Roma and Sinti women and youth with mainstream and Roma parties, and their prospects as candidates and representatives. Public and political participation was also addressed from the viewpoint of youth, at the “Roma and Sinti Youth Conference: Activism, Participation, Security”, which took place in Belgrade, on 8 and 9 December, and was convened by ODIHR with the support of the Office for Human and Minority Rights and the Ministry of Youth and Sport. The conference built on ODIHR’s Roma Youth Initiative grant-making activity from 2013, as well as activities targeting youth implemented within ODIHR’s former project Best Practices for Roma Integration in the Western Balkans program. Additionally, the Roma and Sinti Youth Conference was developed in the context of the OSCE Swiss and Serbian Chairmanship priorities on strengthening the involvement of civil society, as well as youth, in the work of the OSCE. The conference brought together over 50 young Roma and Sinti from 18 countries, including ODIHR’s junior experts – young Roma and Sinti activists and scholars who prepared background papers for the event. Its agenda focused on the empowerment and social inclusion of Roma and Sinti communities through youth activism and the participation of Roma and Sinti youth in politics and democratic processes. The conference also pioneered a discussion about security and Roma and Sinti youth from a cross-dimensional perspective. The participation of Roma and Sinti women, in particular, was the focus of a number of activities ODIHR conducted in 2014, such as the joint visit to Albania, conducted by the Special Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office on Gender Issues and ODIHR’s Senior Adviser on Roma and Sinti Issues, which took place from 2 to 4 April. Similarly, together with resident United Nations agencies and the Council of Europe, ODIHR held a joint roundtable on Roma women’s political participation, which took place on 24 April in Chisinau. ODIHR also hosted a Roma and Sinti women consultation meeting on the margins of the OSCE Gender Equality ­Review Conference, held on 10 July 2014 in Vienna. In this way, 13 Roma and Sinti women activists from Europe and the United States meaningfully contributed to the Gender Equality Review Conference by raising concerns on the multiple forms of discrimination they face in crisis situations, in the economic sphere and in political participation, or with regard to violence they face from outside and within their ODIHR Annual Report 2014 61