MINELRES: Fwd: Article Dealing with the Discrimination against Roma in Moldova
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Mon Apr 19 20:58:14 2004
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http://www.azi.md/news?ID=28631
April 9 2004
Gypsy Leaders Say Gypsy People Would Not Disclose Ethnic Origin for Fear
of Discrimination
Very few Gypsy (Roma) people would disclose their ethnic origin, and the
main reason is that they are afraid of discrimination, a Moldovan Roma
leader told a meeting marking the International Day of the Roma.
Dumitru Danu, chairman of the Moldovan Roma Association, said in
Chisinau on Thursday that the significance of the International Day of
the Roma is to raise the awareness of Roma people. A big part of Roma
identify themselves as Moldovans/Romanians or Russians, because of
prejudices and disregarding attitude towards the Roma. In reality the
number of ethnic Roma is bigger than official data show, Danu stated.
Galina Miletchi, an expert for Roma problems at the Interethnic
Relations Department, said that the state institutions cannot take into
account other data but official ones. If the Roma prefer to identify
themselves as Moldovans or other people, not body in the state can
oblige them to change their option, she noted.
She admitted, however, that there are paradoxical situations, when both
parents are Roma, while their children are translated in papers as
Moldovans or Russians. A situation of this sort faces Gheorghe Martan,
chairman of the Roma Tradition, who considers himself a Roma man, but
whose two daughters declared themselves Moldovans.
Martan stated that many Roma are afraid of discrimination against
themselves or their children by other ethnic groups, if they are
recognized as Roma representatives. The fear is connected especially
with the long search for employment, he underlined.
The International Day of the Roma was declared in 1991, at the first
world congress of Roma people in Roma. In Moldova, this date is marked
since 2000. There are about 20,000 Roma people in Moldova, according to
official statistics.
BASA-PRESS
� 1998-2002 Moldova Azi
P.S. Note of the editor: There is a mistake in this article marked in
red by me. The first world congress of Roma was held in London in 1971,
but not in 1991 in Roma as an author of an article states. Please, visit
this Roma link for more info on topic
http://www.homestead.com/australiaromani/Ustiben.html