| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 67,179 [1] (2021 census) | |
| Languages | |
| Romani and other languages (Slovak, Hungarian) | |
| Religion | |
According to the last census from 2021, there were 67,179 persons counted as Romani people in Slovakia , or 1.23% of the population. [1] However, the number of Roma is usually underreported, with estimates placing the Roma population at 7-11% of the population. Thus the actual number of Roma may be over half a million. [2]
The Romani people in Slovakia originate from Northern India, [3] [4] [5] [6] from the northwestern Indian regions of Rajasthan and Punjab. [7] [8]
The linguistic evidence has indisputably shown that roots of Romani language lie in India: the language has grammatical characteristics of Indo-Aryan languages and shares with them a big part of the basic lexicon, for example, body parts or daily routines. [9]
More exactly, Romani shares the basic lexicon with Hindi and Punjabi. It shares many phonetic features with Marwari, while its grammar is closest to Bengali. [10]
Genetic findings in 2012 suggest the Romani originated in northwestern India and migrated as a group. [4] [5] [11] According to a genetic study in 2012, the ancestors of present scheduled tribes and scheduled caste populations of northern India, traditionally referred to collectively as the Ḍoma, are the likely ancestral populations of modern European Roma. [12]
In February 2016, during the International Roma Conference, the Indian Minister of External Affairs stated that the people of the Roma community were children of India. The conference ended with a recommendation to the Government of India to recognize the Roma community spread across 30 countries as a part of the Indian diaspora. [13]
The first record of sightings of small groups of Romani within the area of present-day Slovakia are from 1322 AD, when the region was part of the Kingdom of Hungary. Major waves of Romani nomads were recorded from 1417 onwards. In 1423 they received a decree from the Hungarian king Sigismund of Luxemburg at Szepes Castle, granting them Europe-wide right of passage and the right to settle. They proved to be useful metal workers for the royal armies fighting the Turks. [14]
Through the ensuing centuries, whilst in western and central Europe Romani were treated violently and often expelled, the Hungarian Kingdom and Habsburg Monarchy in general provided a tolerant and stable safe-haven for the Romani community. In the 18th century, Joseph II of the house of Habsburg attempted to 'civilize' the Romani, for example by prohibiting their dress and customs and educating them. However these efforts generally failed.
After the repressive Romani policies of the first Czechoslovak Republic [15] (1918-1939), the communist government of 1948-1989 attempted to integrate the Romani into the majority population through obligatory education and employment, and the formation of Romani organizations. The nomadic way of life was banned in 1958. Parts of the Romani population were also resettled from Slovakia into the country's Czech regions.
Though these policies were partly successful, [16] after the 1989 Velvet Revolution, the Romani have once again found themselves on the margins of the society. On the one hand, there is a generous social system, but the system fails to effectively integrate them into the mainstream society.
Roma people suffer serious discrimination in Slovakia. Roma children are segregated in school and do not receive the same level of education as Slovak children. Some are sent to schools for children with mild mental disabilities. As a result, their attainment level is far below average. [17] Amnesty International's report "Unfulfilled promises: Failing to end segregation of Roma pupils in Slovakia" describes the failure of the Slovak authorities to end the discrimination of Roma children on the grounds of their ethnicity in education. According to a 2012 United Nations Development Programme survey, around 43 per cent of Roma in mainstream schools attended ethnically segregated classes. [18]
A human rights fact finding mission found widespread violations of Romani women's human rights including forced sterilisations, racially discriminatory access to health care and physical and verbal abuse by medical staff amongst others. The report from 2003 states that there was a "clear and consistent patterns of health-care providers who disregarded the need for obtaining informed consent to sterilization and who failed to provide accurate and comprehensive reproductive health information to Romani patients." [19]
The accusations of forced sterilization have been claimed to be false, eg. in a paper published by a Non-governmental organization stating that it was "aimed at proving an earlier assumed hypothesis, highly popular in the media. It did not bring any specific knowledge, no hard data, thanks to which we could say that some truth was revealed. This is, to put it shortly, an example of a harmful action on the part of NGOs." [20] However, many cases have been confirmed, for instance by the European Court of Human Rights. [21] In 2021 the Slovak government apologised for forced sterilisations of thousands of Roma women. [22] Also in 2021, the Czech Republic passed a compensation bill. [23]
Roma are the victims of ethnically driven violence and crime in Slovakia. According to monitoring and reports provided by the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) in 2013, racist violence, evictions, threats, and more subtle forms of discrimination have increased over the past two years in Slovakia. The ERRC considers the situation in Slovakia to be one of the worst in Europe, as of 2013. [24]
Romani people receive new housing from municipalities and regional administrations for free every year, however people complain that some of them end up being destroyed by Romani people themselves. [25] [26] [27] [28] After the destruction, in some cases it has happened that the residents receive new housing, without being criminally prosecuted for destroying state property. [29]
The 2019 Pew Research poll found that 76% of Slovaks held unfavorable views of Roma. [30]
The Romani, also spelled Romany or Rromani and colloquially known as the Roma, are an ethnic group of Indo-Aryan origin who traditionally lived a nomadic, itinerant lifestyle. Linguistic and genetic evidence suggests that the Romani originated in the Indian subcontinent, in particular the region of present-day Rajasthan. Their subsequent westward migration, possibly in waves, is now believed by historians to have occurred around 1000 CE. Their original name is from the Sanskrit word डोम, doma and means a member of the Dom caste of travelling musicians and dancers. The Roma population moved west into the Persian Ghaznavid Empire and later into the Byzantine Empire. The Roma are thought to have arrived in Europe around the 13th to 14th century. Although they are widely dispersed, their most concentrated populations are located in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Spain, and Turkey.
Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, is a government-mandated program to involuntarily sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's capacity to reproduce, and is usually done through surgical procedures. Several countries implemented sterilization programs in the early 20th century. Although such programs have been made illegal in most countries of the world, instances of forced or coerced sterilizations persist.
The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) is a Roma-led, international public interest law organisation engaging in a range of activities aimed at combating anti-Romani racism and human rights abuse of Romani people. The approach of the ERRC involves, in particular, strategic litigation, international advocacy, research and policy development, human rights focused news production, and the training of Romani activists.
The Romani people, also referred to as Roma, Sinti, or Kale, depending on the subgroup, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group that primarily lives in Europe. The Romani may have migrated from what is the modern Indian state of Rajasthan, migrating to the northwest around 250 BC. Their subsequent westward migration, possibly in waves, is now believed to have occurred beginning in about 500 AD. It has also been suggested that emigration from India may have taken place in the context of the raids by Mahmud of Ghazni. As these soldiers were defeated, they were moved west with their families into the Byzantine Empire.
Romani people in Bulgaria constitute Europe's densest Roma minority. The Romani people in Bulgaria may speak Bulgarian, Turkish or Romani, depending on the region.
Anti-Romani sentiment is a form of bigotry which consists of hostility, prejudice, discrimination, racism and xenophobia which is specifically directed at Romani people. Non-Romani itinerant groups in Europe such as the Yenish, Irish and Highland Travellers are frequently given the name "gypsy" and as a result, they are frequently confused with the Romani people. As a result, sentiments which were originally directed at the Romani people are also directed at other traveler groups and they are frequently referred to as "antigypsy" sentiments.
Romani people are an ethnic minority in the Czech Republic, currently making up 2–3% of the population. Originally migrants from North Western India sometime between the 6th and 11th centuries, they have long had a presence in the region. Since the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918, the Romani population have experienced considerable hardship, having been a main target of Nazi extermination programs during World War II, and the subject of forced relocation, sterilisation, and other radical social policies during the Communist era. In the successor state, the Czech Republic, challenges remain for the Romani population with respect to education and poverty, and there are frequent tensions with the white majority population over issues including crime and integration.
Barbora Bukovská is a Czech-Slovak human rights attorney and activist, known originally for her work on racial discrimination of Romani people in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and later for free speech advocacy.
The Romani people have several distinct populations, the largest being the Roma and the Calé, who reached Anatolia and the Balkans in the early 12th century, from a migration out of the Indian subcontinent beginning about 1st century – 2nd century AD. They settled in the areas of present-day Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Romania, Croatia, Moldova, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Hungary, Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Slovakia, by order of volume, and Spain. From the Balkans, they migrated throughout Europe and, in the nineteenth and later centuries, to the Americas. The Roma population in the United States is estimated at more than one million.
The presence of a Romani minority in Ukraine was first documented in the early 15th century. The Romani maintained their social organizations and folkways, shunning non-Romani contacts, education and values, often as a reaction to anti-Romani attitudes and persecution. They adopted the language and faith of the dominant society, being Orthodox in most of Ukraine, Catholic in Western Ukraine and Zakarpattia Oblast, and Muslim in Crimea.
Romani people in Hungary are Hungarian citizens of Romani descent. According to the 2011 census, they comprise 3.18% of the total population, which alone makes them the largest minority in the country, although various estimations have put the number of Romani people as high as 8.8% of the total population. They are sometimes referred as Hungarian Gypsies, but that is sometimes considered to be a racial slur.
The number of Romani people in Ireland is roughly estimated, as the Central Statistics Office collects its data based on nationality and not ethnic origin. For this reason a precise demographic profile of the Romani in Ireland is not available. Some estimates of Romani in Ireland give the population at 1,700 in 2004, rising to between 2,500 and 3,000 in 2005. The majority derived from Romani populations originating in Ukraine and Hungary.
The Romani people in Turkey or Turks of Romani background are Turkish citizens and the biggest subgroup of the Turkish Roma. They are Sunni Muslims mostly of Sufi orientation, who speak Turkish as their first language, in their own accent, and have adopted Turkish culture. Many have denied their Romani background over the centuries in order to establish a Turkish identity, to become more accepted by the host population. They identify themselves as Turks of Oghuz ancestry. More specifically, some have claimed to be members of the Yörüks, Amuca, Gajal or Tahtacı.
Romani people in France, generally known in spoken French as gitans, tsiganes or manouches, are an ethnic group that originated in Northern India. The exact number of Romani people in France is unknown; estimates vary from 500,000 to 1,200,000.
There have been Romani people in Croatia for more than 600 years and they are concentrated mostly in the northern regions of the country.
K.H. and Others vs. Slovakia is the first in a series of cases before the European Court for Human Rights dealing with the subject of forced sterilisation of Romani people or Gypsy women from Slovakia. The case did not deal with sterilization directly but it concerned access to medical records of forcibly sterilized Romani women for the purpose of litigation of their rights.
After World War I, the Romani people in Czechoslovakia formed an ethnic community, living on the social periphery of the mainstream Czechoslovakian population.
The Romani are an ethnic group that has lived in Austria since the Middle Ages. According to the 2001 census, there were 6,273 Romani speakers in Austria, or less than 0.1% of the population. Estimations count between 10,000 and 25,000. A more recent estimation count between 40,000 and 50,000 Romani people or about 0.5%. Most indigenous Romani people in Austria belong to the Burgenland-Roma group in East-Austria. The majority live in the state of Burgenland, in the city of Oberwart and in villages next to the District of Oberwart. The Burgenland-Roma speak the Vlax Romani language.
Romani people in Germany are estimated to around 170,000-300,000, constituting around 0.2-0.4% of the population. One-third of Germany Romani belong to the Sinti group. Most speak German or Sinte Romani.
Albania houses a large population of Romani, who are part of the larger Romani diaspora.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)Zatímco romská lexika je bližší hindštině, marvárštině, pandžábštině atd., v gramatické sféře nacházíme mnoho shod s východoindickým jazykem, s bengálštinou.
