🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:48:14 -0700 (PDT), "(David P.)"
<imbibe@mindspring.com> wrote:

>http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2008-04-22-popkostadinova-en.html
>
>Nikoleta Popkostadinova
>"No maths and no water in Stolipinovo"
>
>"The jobs boom in Bulgaria has left the Roma behind"
>
>[With the EU accession of Bulgaria & Romania, the Roma
>became the largest autochthonous ethnic minority within
>the Union, without this translating into political
>influence. While there is general agreement at the
>political level that socio-economic integration of Roma
>is desirable, neither the EU commission nor the national
>governments appear to be prepared to implement the
>necessary strategies to bring this about, writes
>Nikoleta Popkostadinova.]
>
>On the streets of Sofia's Roma ghetto, tarmac is no more
>than a memory. Wretched shanties, built at random out of
>mud & broken brick, line crammed alleyways. Ill-smelling
>sludge flows along open gutters. To spot the links between
>local families, one need only follow the illegal power
>lines connecting their huts. Here, the very concept of
>infrastructure is as alien as astrophysics, while "the
>municipality" is a dirty word.
>
>It may look like a snapshot from the Third World, but this
>is the Faculteta district of Bulgaria's capital, and the
>scenes here are replicated across the country and in
>neighbouring Romania, both members of the European Union
>since January 2007. A recent boom has seen unemployment
>in both countries practically wiped out by the rocketing
>demand for labour. But this benign trend has barely
>touched the Roma. Racism, under-education and lack of
>qualifications have kept them hermetically sealed from
>the economic changes enjoyed by their countrymen.
>
>Nor is this about to change. On the contrary, although
>most of the 45 000 residents of Faculteta are jobless,
>Bulgaria is set to import foreign workers to fuel its
>economic growth rather than integrate the existing Roma
>minority into its labour force. Officially, Bulgaria is
>home to 370 000 Roma. But non-governmental organisations
>believe this is well below the real figure, which they put
>at up to 800 000, or 10 per cent of the population.
>
>During the last 15 years, many Roma from poor rural areas
>have migrated to the towns for a better life. Settling in
>poor and overcrowded districts, these have evolved into
>virtual ghettos. About 54 per cent of Roma now live in
>these mahali, as they are known in Bulgarian. About
>three-quarters never leave them.
>
>Georgi Krastev, head of the Roma Integration Unit in the
>Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, agrees that the
>country faces a problem of severe economic segregation.
>"More than 90 per cent of the unemployed [in Bulgaria]
>are Roma," he says. In August, his ministry reported that
>the jobless rate had dropped to a record low of 7 per cent
>and predicted the trend would continue. In Sofia, almost
>the only unemployed adults are those between jobs and the
>Roma, 60 per cent of whom lack work, according to the
>National Statistics Institute, NSI. Absorbed by other
>problems of the transition period & fearful of championing
>the rights of an unpopular minority, none of Bulgaria's
>post-communist governments has taken substantial steps
>to improve economic mobility among the Roma.
>
>Here and in other new member states, many now regret that
>more was not made of the chances offered by the EU pre-
>accession phase to increase the pressure for action. And
>while Brussels insists Roma integration must remain a
>priority for Bulgaria and Romania � and throughout the
>bloc � few believe the amount of funds that has been made
>available can remove the obstacles preventing upward
>mobility among the Roma. Roma communities in Balkan
>countries hoping soon to join the EU are taking note.
>
>A regional problem, rooted in history
>
>Bulgaria's politicians are not alone in putting their
>heads in the sand. Scenes similar to those in Faculteta
>can be found throughout central and southeastern Europe.
>In Hungary, where Roma make up 6 to 8 per cent of the
>population of about 10 million, about 50 per cent are
>unemployed, compared to a national average of 7 per cent,
>according to a 2005 report by the Magyar Agora pollster.
>More than 50 per cent of Roma households in Hungary live
>below the poverty line, compared to a national average of
>8 per cent. The situation is similar in Serbia, where just
>over 60 per cent of its 300 000 Roma are considered very
>poor, compared to just over 6 per cent of the general
>population, according to an official report on Roma
>inclusion in 2006. The unemployment rate for Roma in all
>age groups and at all educational levels is three times
>higher than that of the non-Roma population.
>
>In the Czech Republic, more than 70 per cent of Roma are
>jobless, compared to about 10 per cent for the country as
>a whole, according to a 2005 European Commission report.
>In Romania, where the 2 million Roma make up about 8 per
>cent of the population of 22 million, as many as 75 per
>cent of those of working-age are unemployed, according
>to a 2004 survey compiled jointly by the UN's development
>arm, UNDP and the International Labour Organisation, ILO.
>
>The roots of these problems go back centuries, says
>Rumyan Sechkov, historian at the Bulgarian Academy of
>Sciences and chair of Start for Alternative Civic
>Initiatives, a campaign group. The curiosity first
>aroused in Europeans by the Roma when they migrated in
>the 15th century from the Indian subcontinent quickly
>turned to outright hostility, he recounts, explaining
>that "the rejection of the Roma has its roots deep back
>in that era." Many sought sanctuary in the European lands
>of the Ottoman Empire, where they were neither welcomed
>nor exterminated. But during the Second World War, around
>half a million Roma were murdered by the Nazis and their
>local allies in the new nation states of central and
>eastern Europe.
>
>The survivors faced fresh attempts at forced assimilation
>from the Communist regimes that took power. In Bulgaria,
>the Roma language was suppressed, their music banned in
>public, and their nomadic lifestyle ended by a 1957 law
>ordering all citizens to register at a fixed address.
>Worse still, in Czechoslovakia, some Roma women were
>sterilised as part of a state policy to reduce their numbers.
>
>In the early 1990s, as political & economic change came
>to the lands of the old Eastern bloc, the Roma suddenly
>gained recognition as a distinct ethnic minority. In
>several ways this was a positive development. But it
>coincided with the collapse of many social institutions
>and, as the most economically vulnerable group, the Roma
>were affected worst. The gap between them and mainstream
>society increased.
>
>Let's ignore the problem
>
>In January 2007, as Romania & Bulgaria joined the EU, the
>Roma became the area's biggest single ethnic minority,
>numbering between 8 & 10 million. But size does not mean
>power, and in the new member states, Roma remain at a
>distinct disadvantage, locked in a cycle of discrimination,
>neglect and exclusion. "I do not say that all the Roma are
>dangerous, but most of them are," says Anton Ivanov, a
>22-year-old Bulgarian from Krasna Poliana, a neighbourhood
>that lies next to Faculteta. This August, five men were
>seriously injured there when a group of Roma men staged
>a revenge attack for the beating of a boy from their
>community.
>
>The district is notorious for ethnic tension, though
>officially there is no such problem. Marko Popov, a
>17-year-old Roma boy, heading home in Faculteta, says:
>"We live normally with the Bulgarians of Krasna Poliana,"
>adding, however, that "normally" means mutual contempt
>between Roma and ethnic Bulgarians, with arson attacks &
>fights on a daily basis. Officials deny such incidents
>stem from racism, classifying the August clash for
>instance as a routine disturbance. Similarly, another
>incident this August, in which a 17-year-old Roma boy
>was beaten to death by ethnic Bulgarians in the town of
>Samokov, was described by police as "a fight between
>youth gangs".
>
>Meanwhile, the prejudices of young men like Ivanov
>provide fertile ground for growing right-wing elements.
>Bojan Rasate, the head of the Bulgarian National Union,
>has become Ivanov's hero, having recently initiated a
>national volunteer squad to "protect" the Bulgarian
>population "from Roma harassment and natural disasters".
>"It is high time someone took measures against them, and
>we are so grateful to Bojan Rasate," says Ivanov, his
>eyes glowing with enthusiasm.
>
>As with other new member states from eastern Europe, the
>European Commission urged Romania & Bulgaria to implement
>a zero-tolerance policy against racism before joining the
>EU. According to Katharina von Schnurbein, spokesperson
>for Vladimir Spidla, the Social Affairs Commissioner who
>counts Roma issues as part of his portfolio, this included
>"legal follow-up of incidents occurring in Roma settlements
>and fighting the ill-treatment of people".
>
>But little change was brought to bear, and admitting that
>racism exists remains taboo. This, along with chronic
>neglect, has left the policies signed up to by the
>Bulgarian authorities, such as the "Decade of Roma
>Inclusion" or the "2007 European Year of Equal Oppor-
>tunities for All", a dead letter.
>
>A walk through Stolipinovo confirms this impression.
>Lying on the outskirts of Bulgaria's second city of
>Plovdiv, it is, with its 35,000 inhabitants, the second
>biggest Roma ghetto in Bulgaria. At lunchtime on a typical
>weekday, everybody is around and the streets are alive
>with clamour. Children play in the mud, men bustle about
>in small groups and women wash clothes in front of their
>apartment blocks.
>
>But the inhabitants are chronically deprived and suffer
>from bad health. "We have had no running water for ten
>years," complains a small, blue-eyed woman, her hair
>piled up in a bun. "All 3 of my children got hepatitis
>last summer as a result."
>
>She goes on: "They have lice in their hair because I
>cannot wash them. Some people accuse me of not sending
>them to school. How can I send them in that state? I
>won't send them!" The health and safety problems so
>visibly present in Stolipinovo are replicated in Marchevo,
>a village notorious for its poor conditions in the Rhodope
>mountains of the south, near the town of Garmen. Its
>origins date back to the 1960s, when a clan of basket
>makers settled there in obedience to the 1957 decree.
>It has long been a source of local epidemics on account
>of its poor sanitation. "Only 500 metres of pipe were
>needed for this mahala to be plugged into the town's
>water supply," says Kalina Bozeva, head of the Inter-
>Ethnic Initiative for Human Rights in Bulgaria. "It was
>the responsibility of the municipality, but it only came
>about recently, as the result of an NGO project."
>
>Petar Dikov, Sofia's chief architect, explains that areas
>populated by Roma were usually listed in urban plans as
>industrial zones, in order to exempt municipalities from
>having to build any infrastructure. It is much the same
>over the border in Romania, where, according to Magda
>Matache, head of a Bucharest-based Roma rights group,
>Romani CRISS, such villages and settlements commonly
>have no running water. "People there can only dream of
>a sewage system," she says. "They have to walk miles
>every day to the nearest well to bring home water for
>their families."
>
>Failure starts at school
>
>Among the many mistakes & omissions made by the Bulgarian
>government with regard to the Roma, none was so crucial
>or so devastating as the way it mishandled the issue of
>schooling. A policy of effective segregation has deprived
>generations of Roma a chance to advance towards equal
>participation in the labour market. In the Communist
>era, Roma could only study in neighbourhood schools
>geared to preparing them for blue-collar, low-qualified
>jobs. Subjects taught in "normal" schools, like math &
>history, were omitted.
>
>"They produced generations of poorly educated people,"
>says Krasimir Kunev, head of the Bulgarian Helsinki
>Committee. Today almost 70% of Roma children continue to
>study in de facto segregated schools, according to a 2006
>Bulgarian Helsinki Committee report.  This, he explains,
>also made Roma the group most vulnerable to economic
>depression and high unemployment in the post-communist
>transition. And although the state became aware of the
>extent of the problem in the early- and mid-1990s, it has
>done little to tackle it beyond providing welfare.
>
>"This was a huge failure," Rumyan Sechkov maintains.
>"It was the easy solution; people with no qualifications
>remained under-qualified and marginalised." Meanwhile,
>according to the historian, ordinary Bulgarians found
>the welfare payouts unfair, which incited social tension.
>The scale of the problem has kept growing, entrenching a
>culture of dependency. "Now we are facing a national
>problem because a whole generation of Roma has grown up,
>never seeing their parents get up in the morning and go
>to work," Sechkov maintains.
>
>In 2006, 58% of Roma households were receiving some form
>of social aid, according to the labour ministry.
>
>But this is about to change. From 1 January 2008, new
>rules will limit the period under which anyone can
>receive welfare to 18 months. While designed to reduce
>abuse of the system, critics insist the development will
>have been in vain if it is not accompanied by polices
>that target poor education and unemployment.
>
>Roza Tzvetanova, 54, is sitting on the kerb in front of
>her home in Stolipinovo. Her head wrapped in a bright
>pink scarf, she rolls tobacco in her lap as she describes
>how she and her five children survive on social benefits,
>she without a job, her husband in prison. When she hears
>she will soon have her welfare cut off, she becomes
>furious: "Are they crazy? They are trying to exterminate
>my children and me! No one wants to employ a 50-year-old
>woman with elementary school. Don't they see this?"
>
>Bulgaria is not alone in the region in failing to offer
>its Roma a decent education. In recent decades, standards
>have remained poor across Southeast Europe, giving Roma
>few chances to escape poverty and participate in society
>on an equal footing. But while other countries in the
>region have taken the first steps towards breaking this
>vicious circle, Bulgaria continues to neglect the issue.
>
>According to the 2001 census, 20% of Roma in Bulgaria
>aged 20 or above remain totally illiterate. But although
>this number is growing, the Ministry of Education appears
>to have no strategy to tackle the problem. In 2002, for
>example, the government issued an order that ethnic
>minority pupils be integrated into the mainstream, but
>failed to require municipalities to comply. And according
>to Kunev's 2006 report, these did not do so.
>
>Romania's authorities are more pro-active, & as far back
>as 1993 they adopted affirmative action measures to
>increase the enrolment of Roma into high schools and
>universities. As a result, 400 Roma students were admitted
>in the 2005-2006 academic year to universities.
>
>Magda Matache also describes Romania's affirmative action
>policy as successful, citing reports that more Roma are
>visiting schools & more are graduating. While the results
>will only become clear in the long term, she believes the
>first effects are already emerging, as those now receiving
>a decent education return as role models to their
>communities or stay in the cities and find jobs. "Their
>jobs are either in institutions or the civil society
>sector [rather than business], but it is still a step
>forward," Matache maintains.
>
>In Serbia, affirmative measures are also being taken.
>According to the 2002 census, almost 62% of Serbian Roma
>failed to complete elementary school, while less than 8%
>completed secondary education, and a miniscule 0.3%,
>higher education. However, the government has recently
>allocated extra budgetary funds for educational bursaries
>for Roma students.
>
>The results have been dramatic, especially when the number
>of students enrolled in high schools is compared over two
>consecutive years. "In 2005-2006, we managed to enrol 88
>Roma students in high schools, while the number in 2006-
>2007 was 260," says Ljuan Koka, director of the Secretariat
>for Roma Strategy in Serbia.
>
>An untapped source of labour
>
>Experts agree that a main precondition for improving
>socio-economic prospects among the Roma is to cut the
>high rate of unemployment. The irony is that countries
>like Bulgaria are crying out for workers. In fact,
>according to a recent World Bank report on eastern
>Europe, Bulgaria risks a slowdown in economic growth
>if it does not address its shortage of both skilled and
>unskilled labour. And while it suggests better utilisation
>and education of domestic workers "through reforming the
>educational systems and improving domestic mobility," it
>also states that workers should be brought in from abroad.
>
>Evgeni Ivanov, of the Confederation of Employers and
>Industrialists in Bulgaria, says the country is foolish
>to hunt for foreign workers while ignoring an untapped
>pool of labour at home. "Bulgaria has all the financial
>and human resources it needs to get the Roma integrated
>into the mainstream labour market," he points out.
>
>Ivanov predicts that the labour ministry will have about
>1 billion euros at its disposal from EU Structural Funds
>to spend on programmes targeting Roma. "But we have no
>information that the ministry is actually working on the
>matter," he adds. "We only hear them talking in the
>future tense." Ivanov says the business community should
>support proactive measures to help Roma into work. "As
>employers, we do not mind [workers'] ethnicity or
>nationality, it's the skills that are important." But
>there are few signs of governments in the region actively
>working to improve the Roma community's job prospects. In
>Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania, the authorities have failed
>to find a working formula to improve their chances through
>training schemes, for example.
>
>Romania started targeting the Roma at job fairs in 2001,
>but these have not led to significant results. "Neither
>we nor the labour ministry campaigned enough among the
>Roma community, and in the end, while employers showed up
>[at the fairs], the Roma did not," says Gelu Domenica,
>head of the Impreuna Agency for Community Development in
>Bucharest. The same thing happened in Bulgaria: although
>job fairs have been held since 2005 in Roma districts, the
>results have been negligible. And labour ministry official
>Georgi Krastev admits that government-sponsored courses
>have so far reached no more than 4000 Roma.
>
>"These are only temporary solutions," says Georgi Georgiev,
>46, who attended a job fair in Stolipinovo's school two years
>ago. Together with his 20-year-old son, Iliya, he found a
>job sweeping up waste at a building site in Plovdiv. But
>when the building was finished a few months later, both
>returned to their all-day card games in the ghetto. Besides,
>"only a few people from the neighbourhood went to the job
>fair, since almost no one knew when and where it would take
>place," adds Georgiev. "I remember that the labour ministry
>officials, employers and journalists together outnumbered
>the Roma who attended."
>
>Don't count on Brussels
>
>As Serbia looks forward to membership negotiations with
>the EU, many see this as an ideal time to put relations
>with the Roma onto a new footing. Activists and rights
>groups in particular are relying on external pressure to
>nudge state policy towards Roma in a positive direction.
>Ferhad Saiti, head of RTV Nisava, an NGO, says the EU will
>be the best thing to happen to Serbia's Roma. But the recent
>experiences of Bulgaria & Romania should serve as reminders
>that Saiti's optimism may well be misplaced. Serbia's
>neighbours both underwent radical reforms as a result of
>the EU membership negotiation process. But no sustainable
>solutions were found for the problems of their respective
>Roma minorities. Pressure from Brussels proved insufficiently
>strong to bring about real change and is decreasing now
>Bulgaria and Romania are members.
>
>In Romania, the poor situation of the Roma was mentioned
>in several pre-accession monitoring reports that were
>"pretty harsh" according to Radu Motoc, of the Soros
>Foundation in Bucharest. In September 2006, the European
>Commission noted "cases of institutional violence against
>Roma, such as police raids & evictions in Roma communities,
>without providing them with alternative accommodation". In
>Bulgaria, it expressed concern that the governmental
>approach to non-registered settlements, mainly of Roma,
>had "led to tensions", adding: "Further efforts are needed
>to combat all forms of intolerance".
>
>But beyond issuing critical reports, Brussels did not bring
>about much change in the status or prospects of the Roma.
>On paper, both Romania and Bulgaria now comply with EU
>standards on human rights, employment, housing & education.
>
>While the Commission's Katharina von Schnurbein describes
>how Brussels "worked closely with Bulgaria and Romania to
>set up various support programmes which aim at improving
>the housing, education and health situation of Roma,"
>Radu Motoc says the EU approach was deficient. "There
>were sectors that were totally left out [in the Romanian
>accession process], such as the social sector. Like the
>Bulgarians, we focused on anti-corruption and on reform
>of the judiciary."
>
>In Bulgaria, Kalina Bozeva fears the slow steps taken
>towards improving the position of Roma will tail off as
>pre-accession, external, pressure on the gov't relaxes.
>Her human rights organisation is one of a group trying to
>engage Europe in pushing Roma integration to the top of
>the political agenda. In Romania, NGOs have lobbied for
>the appointment of a minority commissioner at the European
>Commission, convinced that Commissioner Spidla's brief is
>too wide. But in vain. "For now it is only a dream,"
>admits Dominica.
>
>The European Commission rejects accusations that it has
>eased off on Roma, citing the support of its Structural
>Funds for their inclusion. "[T]he Commission is working
>very closely with Bulgaria and Romania to ensure that the
>key challenge of Roma inclusion is taken on board in both
>planning and implementation," says von Schnurbein. But
>seen from a different angle, the commitment seems dubious.
>As Gruia Bumbu, head of the Romanian National Agency for
>Roma, points out, the 240 million euros spent by the
>Commission over the past decade on Roma inclusion programs
>comes to about three euros a year for every Roma, "while
>it offers an annual subsidy of 32 to 35 euros for each cow."
>
>Roma as an asset, not a liability
>
>Against this bleak background, some experts are calling
>for a new, more innovative, approach to Roma across central
>and eastern Europe, saying the current welfare-centred
>approach not only ruins lives but costs too much money.
>Bulgarian economists Lachezar Bogdanov of Industry Watch,
>a business consultancy, and Georgi Angelov of the Open
>Society Institute, in a report entitled Integration of
>the Roma in Bulgaria, say a more proactive approach,
>involving a short-term increase in government spending,
>would expedite the mobilisation of the Roma into the labour
>force, and result in overall budget savings within only
>ten years.
>
>They say that the half-a-billion euros Bulgaria will
>spend over the next ten years on programmes specifically
>for the Roma could generate a return of 7.5 to 15 billion
>euros if it were invested more wisely � that is, in
>building skills.
>
>"If this was a real estate project, private entrepreneurs
>would greedily take it since the investment would be seen
>as worthwhile," Bogdanov says. "But Bulgarians, & especially
>the state, do not consider the Roma minority as potential
>taxpayers or as a future source of labour force and GDP."
>
>Gelu Domenica agrees that the existing approaches of
>governments in the region have failed. "We must change
>our discourse from the human rights perspective to reasons
>to invest in Roma communities," he argues. "We need to make
>the state aware that labour in the Roma community is cheaper
>and easier to find than bringing in labour from abroad."
>
>Government representatives freely admit the case for Roma
>economic empowerment � but then all too often pass the buck.
>Thus, Georgi Krastev argues that while Roma economic
>integration is a must, "it's not the [central] state's job.
>The municipalities should be the initiators." He fails to
>mention, however, that Bulgarian municipal budgets are
>allocated by central government.
>
>All sectors of society, it appears, agree on the need to
>mobilize the economic potential of the Roma in the 21st-
> century and accept that this is only possible through
>long-term, consistent investment in the community. But
>neither national governments nor Brussels look ready to
>take the required lead in bringing this about.
>
>Third World scenes from Bulgaria's Roma ghettos seem
>destined to remain part of Europe's landscape for years
>to come.
>
>This article was written while Nikoleta Popkostadinova
>was a fellow of the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic
>Excellence 2007, a programme initiated by the Robert
>Bosch Stiftung and ERSTE Foundation in cooperation with
>the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.
>.
>.
Ask anyone from big city police who is willing to talk: re
Gypsies. They are very few in America but how they
do steal! However, negroes and hispanics will hurt
people in addition to stealing.

ted