Periscope Field reports
The old pains told trough the pink glasses
Everything is the same as the last year, with the exception of the progress of the political will of the European commission, after five years on the waiting point of the undefined candidate status, Skopje finally should start negotiations with Brussels for joining the European Union
Alarming notice from Brussels: The number of Roma children on the streets is increasing!
The Roma people are still most discriminating ethnic group in the country. They are still facing with very difficult living conditions and the quiet segregation and discrimination is going on in many fields, like the access to personal documentation, education, social and health insurance, as well as employment and housing. In the same time, it is noticeable the tendency of slowly improvement of their general condition. These are the conclusions given by the European commission in the report for the progress of Macedonia in its integration towards European Union, published in October this year.
The slight improvement of the general situation, although it’s not precisely told, the members of the European Commission are seeing that in the fact that there are no official data for the police torture and other kinds of ill-treatment over Roma people, as it is written in the report, in the part for discrimination.
-The unemployment rate among the representatives of this ethnic group is the highest in the country and it is 73 percent, compared with the unemployment rate of 30 percent on the country’s level. The poverty is most present among the Roma people, so 63 percent of the total number of the Roma population in the country is on the edge of poverty, compared with the one third of the situation on the country’s level. The situation is very similar with the death rate, which is the highest among Roma people – it’s written in the report, although in it there aren’t concrete statistical data to compare with.
The commission notice that the biggest problems, when the question of the rights of Roma people is raised and their integration into the society, still remains the lack of money and the weak administrative capacity of the Ministry without portfolio, which is directly charged for the implementation of the goals seated in the strategic document known as the Decade of the Roma inclusion 2005-2015. The priorities of the strategy for Roma until 2015 are to facilitate the procedure to documents for personal identification, education, social and health insurance, employment and improvement the conditions for living.
Increasing the budget for faster integration of the Roma in the society and strengthening the administrative capacity of the Ministry without portfolio are two main recommendations for the country given by the European commission.
But, the European commission also notes the biggest problems that the representatives from the Roma community in country faces with. Representation of Roma in the public life and in the institutions of the state are also on a very low level and in the coming period they should be increased. The Roma people are still on a ,non-famous, rate for illiteracy among their children. Nevertheless the fact that the situation of more signed children into elementary and secondary schools is improved, the general impression is that the country must work hard in order to ease the access to the elementary education. According to the statistics, presented in the report, 61 percent of the children are enrolling elementary school, but only 17 percent of those who finished their primary education continue in the secondary education, and this is more lower that the general average on the country’s level.
Delinquency among minors, among Roma people is still huge problem, not only for the Roma community, but for the country in general. Because of that, the European Commission notes that the number of Roma children on the streets is increasing.
In front of the members of the European parliament was presented the infamous information about the destiny of the Roma refugees from Kosovo. Therefore, from total 1.700 people that were officially registered as humanitarian treated persons in July 2009, only 25 of them gained the status of refugees, while 1094 are still humanitarian treated.
The overall impression is that there is really, noticeable movement in the situation in the country, but that is not even close to the logical constellation with the evident increase of the political will of Brussels, that finally will start the negotiations for fully membership of the country in the EU, after whole five years in the waiting room with the undefined status of candidate country.
