UNDP, the World Bank and the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). They conducted a survey in 84,000 households in 11 countries across the continent. What they found was grim: only 15% of young Roma adults surveyed finish upper-secondary general or vocational education, compared with more than 70% of the majority population living nearby. Less than 30% of Roma surveyed are in paid employment. And about 45% of them live in households lacking at least one of the following: an indoor kitchen, loo, shower or bath, or electricity (via new report, Economist)
- Conditions in Roma settlements on the edges of town and villages rival Africa or India for their deprivation. And most Roma in eastern Europe (where the majority of Europe’s Roma live) are now worse off than under communism, which, for all its faults, at least guaranteed work, housing and welfare. It also stamped down on hate crimes that now flare up in regular intervals.
- We are now seven years into Europe’s “Decade of Roma Inclusion”, launched in 2005 at a riverside hotel in Budapest. In order to reduce the gap between Roma and non-Roma, national strategies will need to be more effectively implemented. The authors of the report recommend that policymakers pay more attention to the school participation and school completion of Roma children; the skills and education of Roma jobseekers; the housing needs of the Roma and their health condition. It is also important to focus more on the combat against discrimination and anti-gypsyism and to raise Romas’ awareness of their fundamental rights.
