Printed 28.11.2023 19:56 30-11-2006 Daniela Lazarova, Alexis Rosenzweig
It is a vicious circle: poor education -unemployment - bad housing. Despite
efforts to integrate the Roma community into Czech society, the Roma still
remain on the fringe of society, unable to break free of the constraints
which pre-determine their place in life. A report by the Vienna-based
European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia says more effort needs
to be undertaken across Europe to resolve this problem.
"We have found specific problems in the Czech Republic regarding segregation in schools. Eighty percent of Roma students are educated in segregated schools and segregated schools means, nearly always, discrimination. Another area of segregation is housing. The Roma live in such poor housing conditions and often have a very insecure housing situation. This was found to be a big, big problem not only in the Czech Republic but also in other EU member states. And thirdly there is unemployment. The research teams found that around 80 percent of the Roma are unemployed. And clearly these three areas are closely linked. Poor housing leads to poor education and poor education leads to unemployment."
How about the situation regarding unemployment and housing?
"Yes, exactly. It is very important to have some kind of dialogue between state institutions, local bodies and NGOs. It is vital to have dialogue because apart from laws being passed which could be used for the benefit of the Roma community you see that the state institutions are so far away there is no leadership there. At the local level - the local institutions say - we are not going to do this because we do not know how and we do not have the capacity to do these things - reform the school system, invest in housing development. So I think we really should come together and meet in these problem regions - for example like the Ostrava region - state officials could move for a couple of days to these regions to talk to the local authorities in order to see what are the possibilities and the constraints here at local level that prevent things from changing for the better." Kumar, is there a will to solve this problem? "I think there is no ill will. I think there is a lack of goodwill and goodwill can be cultivated when people feel confident that things can be changed." Copyright © Radio Praha, 1996 - 2003 |