Welcoming the European Parliament’s (EP) new initiative “calling for an overall strategy to integrate the Roma community into the European Union”, world Hindus and Jews communities have asked for immediate steps to tackle poverty and discrimination among Roma community.
Hindu statesman Rajan Zed and prominent Rabbi Jonathan B. Freirich, in a joint statement in Nevada (USA), said that European Union (EU) and countries in the region, instead of just “selling dreams on paper” and “sweet talk”, should immediately take concrete measures to end centuries and generations of maltreatment of European Roma, who still reportedly lived in apartheid like conditions.
Zed and Rabbi Freirich stressed that although EU legislation prohibited discrimination on grounds of ethnic origin in employment, social protection and education as well as access to goods and services, including housing; but for Roma people, EU appeared to be still drawing up “programmes to eliminate discrimination”. A press release posted on EP website yesterday said, “Commission should draw up programmes to eliminate discrimination and stigmatisation of the Roma”.
This EP press release appeared to be admitting poverty, social exclusion, discrimination, lower standard of living, very low employment rate of women, unequal access to services, socio-economic disadvantages, etc., of Roma. How Europe, which prided itself for its human rights record, was tolerating such widespread maltreatment and prejudice against a segment of its own society which was simply immoral and a dark stain on the face of Europe, Rajan Zed and Rabbi Jonathan Freirich asked.
References to Roma people reportedly went as far back as ninth century AD. How many more centuries they had to reside in Europe to prove that they were “real and equal” Europeans like any other, Zed and Rabbi Freirich asked and added that in some European countries, many businesses still refused them entry.
European Roma reportedly regularly faced racism, substandard education, hostility, social exclusion, joblessness, rampant illness, inadequate housing, lower life expectancy, unrest, living on desperate margins, language barriers, stereotypes, mistrust, rights violations, discrimination, marginalization, appalling living conditions, prejudice, human rights abuse, racist slogans on Internet, unusually high unemployment rates, etc., Hindu and Jewish leaders alleged.
The United Nations in some of its earlier reports had mentioned the sufferings of the largest ethnic community living in central and eastern Europe. Almost 80 percent of Roma are jobless and live in the poorest of poor condition. As per various social organisations’ claim, though government provide aid to those people but many of them remain unaware and unseen due to lack of education and rising discrimination of local administration.
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