Roma still on the margins

Published on 24 May 2012 at 11:36

“The discrimination persists”, writes România Liberă, summarising the findings of a recent study by the Agency for Fundamental Rights of the European Union (FRA). Based on interviews with more than 22,000 people in Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain, the report claims that Roma still live in a situation of exclusion and under harsher conditions than the rest of the population. According to the Bucharest daily, data from FRA and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) show that —

... over 80 percent of Roma respondents live in households at risk of poverty, less than a third bring home a salary, and only 15 percent have been to high school, against 70 percent for the rest of the population.

The study concludes that Roma are “not sufficiently aware of the rights guaranteed under the legislation of the European Union”. Thus, only 40 percent of Roma know the laws that prohibit discrimination against ethnic minorities looking for work.

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