Some progress, but Roma still face many difficulties

Some progress, but Roma still face many difficulties

BELGRADE -- There has been progress when it comes to education and health care provide to the Roma population in Serbia, Vitomir Mihajlovic has said.

But the president of the National Council of the Roma Minority noted ahead of International Roma Day that no progress has been seen in their housing and employment.

Mihajlovic told Tanjug that "some tangible results" have been achieved in the country's education system through affirmative measures in high schools and universities, while 173 elementary schools now have Roma pedagogical assistants, "who serve as a link between teachers, Roma students, and their parents."

According to him, this has resulted in a 20 percent increase in the number of Roma children attending elementary schools.

Dragoljub Atanackovic, deputy director of the Government Office for Human and Minority Rights, said he was only partially satisfied with the implementation of a strategy aimed at improving the position of Roma citizens, adding that "we have not seen much benefit other than its theoretical part that has been produced."

Atanackovic said that Roma face numerous problems, mostly related to their economic and social position, housing, and political representation.

Statistics show that "a Roma is seven times more poor than the poorest Serb," he said, and added that only 20 percent of this minority are functionally literate.

Serbian Ombudsman Sasa Jankovic warned that the Roma continued to be the most vulnerable minority group in Serbia, and that key obstacles to their social and economic integration were yet to be removed.

Jankovic said that no progress would be made unless affirmative action was fully...