Socio-cultural background of the Romani communities in Slovakia

The first appearance of Romani people in Slovakia was in 1322. At this time they could live quite peacefully.
Since the17th century, they have been persecuted all over Europe.

Today the estimate is about 500,000, that is the 8-9% of the population of Slovakia.

Some experts believe the non-Roma population in Slovakia has about 151 children per 1000 families, in Roma families it is 420 children per 1000. If these demographic trends go on, in 2060 Roma will be the majority population in Slovakia. This contributes to nervous reactions from the majority of the population.

Half of the Roma population in Slovakia lives integrated among majority population, the rest live in villages, cities or neighbourhoods separated by streets, railways, and streams.
Following map shows areas of Slovakia with the highest Roma settlements:

The life expectancy in the Roma is significantly shorter than in the other population. If the calculated life expectancy for men in Slovakia is 66.5 and for women 76.5 years, for the Roma men this values is estimated by 12 years less (54.5), while for Roma women is by 10 years less (68.5).

Roma children mortality up to five years of age in Slovakia is also significantly higher compared with the mortality of the other children.

The main factors determining the lower quality of Roma population health are today:

· lower level of education which may be the source of insufficient level of health and social awareness,
· low personal hygiene standard,
· low communal hygiene standard,
· the low housing standard and hazardous environment linked with polluted and devastated environment,
· unhealthy eating habits, unsuitable nutrition,
· increasing rate of alcohol and tobacco products consumption also during pregnancy,
· growing drug addiction and thus higher risk of HIV and hepatitis B and C infection.

In 1991, the 76.68 % of the Roma had basic education as the highest level of completed education. The 8.07 % identified vocational school without a school leaving examination. Only 0.60 % of the Roma had secondary technical education and only the 0.84 % had full secondary education as the highest level of education completed.

Surveys as well as experiences show that inequality of Roma children opportunities is caused mainly by:
- curricula and teaching methods mainly reflecting values and expectations of the majority population, failing to provide sufficient space for the development of the talents and capabilities of the Roma children;
- the teachers are not sufficiently prepared for multicultural classes;
- children are not sufficiently prepared to understand the teaching instructions in the official language, they have poor motivation, they lack positive models oriented on education
- the distance of the schools from municipalities represents a substantial barrier.

Unemployment among Roma population is very high, in some regions above 90%.
Traditional skills of the Roma do not offer a potential solution for their unemployment - they are only of marginal interest for the labour market and the low level of education is their major weakness in the skills competition in the labour market.

Generally speaking, communities of Roma and others have been living here for centuries, sometimes peacefully, sometimes less. People are against Roma for they culture of stealing, of usury, and so on, and are refusing to live in their neighbourhoods for the dirty environment