BUDAPEST, Hungary — The Roma people who initially immigrated from India now comprise eight percent of Hungary’s population. According to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, The Roma in Hungary face a 70 percent unemployment rate. This is equivalent to 10 times the national average and only three percent of the Roma population attend high school, contributing to lack of basic literacy skills.
Human Rights Watch researcher Lydia Gall said: “This is supposed to be a European Union country but travel to any Roma community and you will see people living in poverty like in sub-Saharan Africa and racial attacks with no one brought to justice.”
The majority of Romas live in shanty towns without electricity, water or sewage. Many face large loan debts due to predatory lending practices within their own community, having borrowed money at such high interest rates that repayment often consumes the majority of their income. Lenders have even been known to demand a family’s welfare money to make payments.
Janos Berki is a skilled Roma. Yet, even as a trained electrician he cannot find employment, so he works for $175 a month doing manual labor. The large majority of his check goes to the bank who provided him a loan when his clay and straw home was flooded. His family lives on $40 a month, putting them slightly above the World Bank’s definition of extreme poverty. Berki explained to The Toronto Star, “Even by gypsy standards, we are very poor.”
Hungary fell into recession beginning in 2008 and amid the economic crisis the Fidesz party began to blame the Roma for their country’s struggles. This hostility was further exacerbated upon his election in 2010.
Fidesz has permitted the use of publicly-funded segregated schools. According to a report by The Star, “In Gyongyospata, Roma children attend classes on the first floor of the local school while ethnic Hungarian children are taught on the second. Roma students are not given access to English or swimming lessons or computers and are excluded from after-school sports and arts programs.”
Other Roma children are purposefully misdiagnosed as mentally handicapped. Maternity wards are also known to be segregated. A large minority of Roma women report being put in separate “gypsy rooms” after giving birth. A doctor in Miskolc explained that this “spares them from abusive attitudes.”
Fidesz has also built statues of Miklos Horthy in several communities. While Horthy is favored by some for creating economic progress and defending Hungary from Nazi invasion, he also passed anti-Jewish laws and ordered the deportation of over 500,000 Jews and Roma to Auschwitz.
Human Rights Activist Sander Szoke explains in reference to Fidesz, “What they mean when they say they will crack down on crime is they will look after the Gypsy problem. When they say law, they mean we will finally have our paramilitaries, and when they say order, they mean they won’t support Gypsies financially.”
This past August was the anniversary of the Roma holocaust also known as Poryamus.
Discrimination and threats by paramilitary groups are not uncommon in Roma communities. On March 1 2011, 2,000 right-wing members of the paramilitary group the Civil Guard Association for a Better Future arrived in Gyongyospata, 80 miles east of Budapest.
The members stood in front of Roma homes with dogs, whips and torches. One member screamed “Dirty Gypsies! We should exterminate all the Roma and their children.”
Another paramilitary group called Verdero arrived the following month of April to set up camp nearby a Roma village and invited Hungarian teenagers to come and bring their “pellet guns and boxing gloves.”
Berki reported to The Toronto Star that the paramilitary groups would follow him and his children on their way to school threatening them the whole way. He has since sent his children to live with family in another village because he fears for their safety. Berki’s wife Aniko reported similar experiences.
In August of the same year, another neo-Nazi group of 1,000 members, called The Outlaw Army, descended on the Roma village of Devecser throwing stones and bottles through windows of homes and screaming death threats.
On April 22, following two months of non-involvement by law enforcement the Hungarian Red Cross evacuated 277 Roma women and children. Hungarian government spokesman Peter Szijjarto called the evacuation a “bald-faced lie” and a justice ministry official claimed the Roma were leaving for a scheduled holiday.
Judit Pach, another government spokesman, wrote “The Hungarian government does everything in its power to restrict and abolish the existence of these (neo-Nazi) groups.” However, local activists claim the government had ignored these groups for more than a month.
Violent attacks including homicide also occur.
Szoke explained the issue. “They aren’t reported because Roma are too afraid to complain, the police are not interested, or the police themselves are complicit.” One police cadet told the BBC, “In my experience, 70 or 80 percent of crimes are committed by Roma.” Another cadet explained, “The problem is not the prejudice of the majority, It is the way the Roma hate us, the Hungarians.” However, some police have voiced their disapproval of ethnic hatred.
A female cadet in the city of Miskolc expressed, “We have to be vigilant, and watch out for all signs of intolerance or ethnic hatred on the Internet, and in everyday life.” American activist Patrice O’Neill toured the area to discuss with the police and others her experiences of fighting hate crime in America. The BBC reports that the majority of those in the area who heard her speak enjoyed her message.
Despite these efforts concern over police corruption is still shared by the Roma.
Controversy peaked on August 5, 2011 during the Outlaw Army’s protest in Devescer when four members of the group killed six Roma, including one father and his five-year-old son, and seriously injured 10 others.
Kristof Domina, director of the Athena Institute in Budapest explained that the police minimized the deaths saying, “Several victims did not die of gunshot wounds, but were fatally injured by nails when the roofs of their homes collapsed. It was only after attention from international NGOs and foreign governments that they started to investigate properly.” Also of concern is that Hungarian police do not keep records of suspected hate crimes.
The head of the local Roma community council explained, “When my home was firebombed and when the boys were attacked, the police said the cameras did not work. They don’t want you to see, they don’t want anyone to see what is happening here in Hungary.” Fortunately, the violence in Hungary has decreased since 2011. However, it seems to have shifted to the Czech Republic.
Following repeated rioting in the summer of 2013, Amnesty International and the European Roma Rights Centre demanded that the Czech authorities protect Roma communities. According to a report by the Economist the ethnic hatred between Roma and non-Roma is deeply ingrained and “will likely take decades to ameliorate.”
The Economist writes, “Mentalities on both sides are frozen from the pre-war era, and the debate about how to improve the Roma’s conditions is frequently hamstrung by political correctness.” In Slovakia the authorities have gone so far as to erect walls to separate the Roma and non-Roma communities.
Roma report being discriminated against and treated poorly throughout the European Union. In an effort to escape such treatment and poverty many immigrate to Canada as refugee claimants. Typically the Roma have three options for leaving Hungary.
The options of refuge for the Roma are the United States, Australia and Canada. Australia is the furthest way and has high living expenses making it cost-prohibitive for Roma. The United States requires approval from the Department of Homeland Security before anyone can travel to the U.S. without a visa, leaving Canada the only real possibility.
In 2011, 18 percent of all Canada’s refugee claimants arrived from Hungary. Presently 40,000 Roma immigrants live in Canada.
Following some high profile criminal cases involving Roma immigrants Canada has begun to express animosity towards the group.
A Roma immigrant by the name of Ferenc Domotor was found guilty in April of being involved in Canada’s all time largest human trafficking ring. The following September, police also arrested 34 Roma who were allegedly involved in another Roma crime ring in the country.
As Roma and Canadian resident Csanyi-Robah explains, just as there are Roma who are lawyers or journalists there are some, who because of their circumstance, have committed theft and other crimes.
However, Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has claimed that the majority of Roma immigrants come to the country to take advantage of social and monetary benefits and then return home to Hungary.
Kenney stated: “You can get a ticket from Europe to Canada for less than $1,000.” Hungarian resident and Roma, Berki, disagrees with Kenney’s claims noting that “In my life I will not make that much money.”
Kenney has also expressed that the Roma should consider moving to other countries within the European Union or elsewhere. However, this is not a realistic option for Roma who wish to escape discrimination and poverty.
The Roma have three month residency rights in other areas of the EU and may seek employment there but are often met with similar discrimination and hatred that they face in Hungary. Matters are further complicated because Canada also has a free trade agreement with the EU in progress which may end abruptly if Canada introduces or offers a visa program for Hungarians.
Like many other issues, poverty is at the root of the problem. The Roma are suffering because they are impoverished and the discrimination they endure exacerbates this suffering further. Discrimination limits and damages many aspects of life and for the Roma it limits their ability to escape poverty.
Although the European Union is a leading superpower in the world the Roma live there in third-world conditions and face discrimination on a regular basis. This is their reality and it should be changed.
– Christopher Kolezynski
Sources: Toronto Star, BBC, The Economist
Photo: Flickr