Europe's biggest minority: Roma people

Résumé du document

There are around 9 million Roma in Europe. The biggest community is in Romania (2,500,000 people, representing 13% of the population). 800,000 live in Bulgaria; 650,000 in Hungary and 520,000 in Slovakia, representing 8% of the population. The Roma people throughout Europe often share the same living conditions. Too many Roma live in poverty with little education, afflicted by unemployment and poor health. Most Roma people are corralled into settlements that put them at the edge of society. Villages are often located near railways; the road to go there is unpaved. People live in self-built, mud-floored huts with seven people in a room.

Extraits

[...] According to Emma Bonino, an Italian politician and former EU commissioner interviewed by the Economist, Roma make a “perfect scapegoat” for politicians who have failed to deal with Italy's other, graver problems. The biggest danger, in her view, is that “politicians have made anti-Roma racism respectable for the first time.” During summer 2008 a crackdown by the Italian authorities to rip the country big cities off Roma camps brought widespread condemnation. However most controversial is a plan by the government to fingerprint Roma people, including children. [...]

[...] As Eastern Europe prospered, the Roma fell further behind. Their surviving traditional skills (handicrafts, horse-trading) were not useful anymore; they are undereducated and don't understand administrative forms to set up businesses. However there is also another important reason which is the hostility from the majority of the population. In most ex-communist countries, polls show striking degrees of prejudice: as many as 80% of those asked say they would not want Roma neighbors. In Hungary, the commendable idea of integrating Roma and non- Roma children in the same schools has sent parents scurrying elsewhere. [...]

[...] These measures may bring self-esteem in the Roma community. Spain is considered as an example for handling Roma communities. Its Roma were marginalized and neglected under France but after Spain entry in the EU the country showed political will to improve the situation and asked European funding to achieve its goal. This policy brought widespread literacy, better housing and integration in the labor market. However Spain is a unique example. Roma people situation is still very bad but the violence in Italy has highlighted the Roma issue in a way that would never have happened if the misery had remained concentrated in the slums and ghettos of Eastern Europe. [...]

[...] Europe's biggest minority: Roma people There are around 9 million Roma in Europe. The biggest community is in Romania (2,500,000 people, representing 13% of the population) live in Bulgaria; 650,000 in Hungary and 520,000 in Slovakia, representing of the population. Roma people throughout Europe often share the same living conditions. Too many Roma live in poverty with little education, afflicted by unemployment and poor health. Most Roma people are corralled into settlements that put them at the edge of society. [...]

[...] The journalist uses a striking sentence. To quote the Economist dirt and smell, the lack of mains water, electricity, sewerage and telephone are all redolent of the poorest countries in the world. So is the illiteracy.” Boys often miss school to help their parents to collect scrap and drop school at 15 when they have completed the eighth grade, necessary to get a driving license. Most girls have never attended classes and those who did stop school around ten when they are ready to be married (no conjugality, just a promise of marriage). [...]