The Situation of the Roma after November 1989
Much as it did in Czech society, life among the Roma changed drastically after November 1989. A part of the Roma began to search
for their identity and to open their culture. They started to put out Romani periodicals and works of original Romani literature, and
started to speak of the Roma as a distinct ethnic minority with the right to education in their mother tongue.
The post-November developments had another side, however, as the Roma have faced high unemployment (as a consequence of
their low skill levels and the prejudice they face from many employers), the loss of the social safety net with which the socialist
state ensured their submission (as well as that of the rest of Czech society), and most of all, the rapid rise in acts of physical
violence towards the Roma.
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