THE ROMA: EUROPE’S BEST KEPT SECRET

Mr Pavon (middle) supervising the barbeque

This year I had occasion to participate in May Day celebrations in far away Romania with a group of  young Roma who have come together to form a social association and now want to work on health rights issues of the local Roma community. The setting was idyllic. We were in a wooded hollow of an artificial lake. We had a splendid barbeque picnic with pork chops, veal steaks and sausages, topped with home-made white and red wine. But we weren’t the only group having fun. Even though communism is history for over twenty years, May Day continues to be an occasion for the whole family to enjoy themselves in Romania. While we were enjoying our barbeque, a stream of visitors came down to enjoy a meal at the floating restaurant or to take a pleasure boat ride.

The lake and floating restaurant

Mr Pavon, the leader of the local Roma community was the master at the barbeque, and he has also been the inspiration behind the younger generation taking up their social cause. Many among this group are students, employed in the local municipality or engaged in business, but the situation of most of the Roma in Romania is far from satisfactory. Earlier in the morning Alfredo, (Mr Pavon’s son) and other members of the youth group, had shown us around what could be termed a Roma ghetto or in more familiar terms a slum. These two multi-storeyed buildings used to be workers quarters for a cement factory. But now the factory which had earlier employed 6000 people, needed just 300 employees and as a result unemployment is high in the community. Many of the unemployed are Roma. These buildings were abandoned by the factory, but now Roma squatters have occupied them. We were told over 100 families occupied each building. There was no running water, no plumbing, no sewage, and the electricity was stolen from the pole just like in India. However an ubiquitous dish antenna stuck out of nearly each ‘apartment’ confirming that TV is the new opium of the masses. There was a primary school close to this building but even though schooling is free, Roma children from these two building do not attend school. They are not even encouraged by the teachers because they are dirty and smelly. But the real reason could be that they are actually busy begging at the street lights or near the supermarket doorway.

Without running water but with dish TVs

Roma or gypsies as they were earlier called are the ‘dalit’ of Europe. Hitler had considered them as much a ‘problem’ as the Jews and had also sent them to concentration camps. Last year Sarkozy had deported ‘migrant gypsies’, raising a controversy in the European Union. Today there are an estimated 10 million Roma living in almost all the countries in Europe, and making up nearly 10% of the population in some countries in Eastern Europe like Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia and Serbia. Though they are citizens of European countries, they are discriminated, being subject to hate crimes, lack proper health and education services and their living conditions, as I was to see later in another place called Vanatori, barely better than poor rural or slum homes in India. It was difficult to imagine how they survived the winters, with temperatures dropping well below freezing.

This child hadn't been immunised

Historically the Roma are supposed to have migrated to Europe from India nearly a thousand years ago. From some accounts they went from Rajasthan, and according to others from Punjab. Genetic studies have confirmed these links. A more obvious connection is the many similar words that Romani language shares with Hindi or Indian languages. The words for eyes, nose, teeth in Roma are also ‘aankh’, ‘naak’, ‘dant’ an eerie similarity. Many Roma look so similar to us South Asians, that they can be easily mistaken as either Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi. My colleague Sunita and I were very warmly greeted whenever we met some Roma.

It was tragic to see children who don’t go to school or have not been immunized. We were told that nearly fifty percent of Roma children do not receive the compulsory vaccines. We saw a one month old baby who had been born at home with the support of her grandmother. None of her three older siblings had also been born in hospital. The local health system of general practitioners and insurance based coverage, seemed totally inappropriate for the Roma, who still need to be convinced of the value of modern medicines in many places. The social distance between the Romanian or Bulgarian doctor and the Roma woman, seemed as much as that between a dalit or tribal woman in north India and the PHC doctor. The big difference was that most Roma did not have health insurance, even though they were citizens, and thus had no claim to the service. However over the last five years efforts are on in Europe through the Decade of Roma Inclusion to make special provisions for the all round development of the Roma. A system of Roma Health Mediators (community health educators) has been started in Romania and is also being piloted in other countries like Bulgaria and Macedonia. The EU has provided special funds to these countries to improve the situation of the Roma. Unfortunately, the overall financial situation in Europe is poor and there are widespread cuts in social spending and we heard of hospitals being closed during our short visit. The one silver lining that I saw was that the more educated and professional Roma are coming together to provide additional support to their community. While some have started NGOs, others are providing volunteer services. It is my privilege to have worked with some of them and strengthen their efforts.

With some Roma women volunteers