'Roma' - tagged features

In a landmark verdict, the European Court of Human Rights recently ruled that the Czech Republic violated the rights of Roma children by placing them in so-called special schools for children with learning difficulties. The state has been ordered to pay the 18 families who took the case 4,000 euros each in compensation. Meanwhile, Roma rights campaigners are now calling for the Czech Republic to adopt positive measures to address the segregation that still exists, despite changes to the law. Radio Prague’s Ian Willoughby reports. 

There are between eight and ten million ethnic Roma people in Europe, and about half of them are children, living in conditions you'd sooner expect to find in the developing world. UNICEF has just published two fresh studies on the plight of Roma children and DW's Eric Heath explored the findings. 

Most Roma in Sweden don't finish school and truancy absenteeism rates are high. However, attitudes are now said to be changing, and more and more are recognizing the value of a good education. But now there are calls for schools to give Roma children more support. 

Europe’s Roma often live on the margins of society, suffering a variety of problems from high unemployment to relatively low life expectancy. In the Czech Republic a new report highlights what seems to be a disturbing trend – the creation of Roma ghettos. The study, ordered by a Czech government ministry, shows that more and more Romanies in the Czech Republic are finding themselves literally living on the edge of society. 

A United Nations committee is looking into claims of enforced sterilisation of Romany women in a number of former communist states, including the Czech Republic. The practice is said to have started in the communist days as a means of "regulating" the Romany population. Human rights activists fear that the practice did not end with the fall of communism. 

Europe's Roma community suffer arguably even worse discrimination than immigrants do. Journalism is frequently responsible for blackening the name of this minority, who often live on the fringes of mainstream society. But it can equally be used to inform, as prejudice is often born simply out of ignorance. Radio Sweden reports on a meeting of Romani journalists from accross Europe that took place in Stockhom recently, and found out about the special difficulties faced by reporters from this community. 

There is so much picturesque mythology surrounding the Roma - or gypsy - people, that cinema seems to find it hard to treat the theme without being seduced into showing singing and dancing round the camp fire.... even when the director is "one of them" - like Tony Gatlif, who was born to Algerian and Spanish-gypsy parents. "Transylvania", which is Gatliff's second film centered on the Romanian Roma, was the closing piece at this year's Cannes film festival. Radio Romania International reports from the city of Cluj on the "Transylvania International Film Festival" where, naturally, Gatliffs new film featured prominently.