Serbia Marks International Roma Day

Serbia marked International Roma Day on April 8 with debates about the poor social and economic position of the Roma community and exhibitions about their culture.

The marginalised position of the Roma was the topic of a conference held at the media center in Belgrade where a report noted the progress made in improving their living standards, with suggestions about what more could be done.

Vitomir Mihajlovic, president of the National Council of the Roma Minority, said the position of the community remained dire.

Many of the 750 or so Roma settlements in Serbia have little or not hygene, he said.

“Some 20 per cent have no water supply, 40 per cent have no sewage system while 10 percent have no electricity,” Mihajlovic told Serbia's public broadcaster, RTS, on April 8.

Mihajlovic told the conference that the government had to take better care of the Roma population if they were ever to exit the cycle of poverty.

He said the Roma needed their own representatives in the government, and ministries needed to cooperate to solve the problems affecting the community.

He also said that the action plans predicted in a 2009 government strategy were largely not being implemented due to the lack of funds.

State ombudsman Sasa Jankovic told the conference that Serbia took some initial steps towards the better integration of Roma in 2009, when it adopted the strategy, “but we have bragged about these few steps as if we had run across a whole field.

“This is a good time to put pressure on the new government and announce that the ombudsman will control practical implementation of the goals that have been set,” Jankovic said.

A conference dealing with the position of women in the Roma community was...