| Total population |
|---|
| Estimates: 1,200,000[1][2][3] [4][5][6][7][8] [9] |
| Regions with significant populations |
| Northern Hungary, Northern Great Plain, Southern Transdanubia |
| Languages |
| Religion |
Hungarian Roma, also known as Romani Hungarians, are Hungarian citizens or resident aliens in Hungary of Roma descent. Sources claim that up to 1,200,000 Roma live in Hungary, some 12 % of the population in Hungary are roma. There is an ongoing ethnic crisis, unique in Europe at the moment, concerning Hungarian Roma, with Reuters reporting:
| “ | Friction between Roma and the rest of population is endemic. More than a half-dozen Roma were killed in a string of [Ethnic] attacks in 2008 and 2009. | ” |
[12] The Hungarian Internet news site Index.hu quotes the Red Cross saying that for the first time since the Second World War, it has had to evacuate civilians due to danger from a paramilitary group in Hungary.[13] Recent Ethnic murders of Hungarian Roma have added to fears that Roma are in danger from extremist groups.
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Romani people first appeared in Hungary in the 14th and 15th centuries, fleeing the conquering Turks in the Balkans. A significant number migrated further to West European countries. Since they were thought to be Egyptian pilgrims in some places, they are still known by the term 'Gypsy' in these areas today. These people, with an alien culture and unfamiliar with agricultural production, were soon expelled and deported from Western Europe, sometimes brutally. Some groups managed to hold onto homes in the Mediterranean region but the majority retreated to Central and Eastern Europe.
In the mid-18th century Maria Theresa (1740–1780) and Joseph II (1780–1790) dealt with the Romani question by the contradictory methods of enlightened absolutism. Maria Theresa enacted a decree prohibiting the use of the name 'Gypsy' and requiring the terms 'new peasant" and 'new Hungarian' to be used instead. She later placed restrictions on Romani marriages, and ordered children to be taken away from Romani parents, so that they could be raised in 'bourgeois or peasant' families.
Joseph II prohibited use of the Romani language in 1783. The forced assimilation essentially proved successful - in the 19th and 20th centuries the vast majority of the Romani population, who had settled hundreds of years earlier and held onto their customs and culture for a long time, gave up, even forgetting their native language and assimilating in Hungarian society.
Since World War II, the number of Roma has increased rapidly, multiplying sevenfold in the last century. Today between 17 and 20% of newborns are of Roma descent. Estimates based on current demographic trends project that in 2050, around 14 to 15% of Hungary's population will be Roma.[14]
The Roma continue to be among the poorest in the country. Their birth rates are much higher and their average expected life span is significantly lower than the national average. Roma continue to be discriminated and live a harsh life in Hungary. They often face hardship and prejudice, and many live in poverty.
Endemic discrimination against Roma appears to be growing, even as Hungary is transforming itself. Attacks on Roma, open discrimination and abuse by government officials exist, and appear to be part of a broad social pattern of discrimination and marginalization which seems likely to continue in Hungary well into the foreseeable future. There is evidence that this discrimination increases at times of economic hardship.[15]
Whereas almost half the Hungarian secondary school students enroll in vocational secondary schools or comprehensive grammar schools, which provide better chances, only one in five Romani children does so. Moreover, the drop-out rate in secondary schools is significant.[16] The Roma struggle to succeed in Hungary's educational system. Only 61% of Hungarian Roma aged 15 and above have completed primary education, and just 13% have completed secondary education.
This may be caused in part by the original culture of Romani people, which they carried with them from India, and which was reinforced during their centuries of nomadic existence; they could ignore or get around many of the laws of the nations through which they traveled. Even today, having been largely settled for much of the twentieth century, they have not managed to fully integrate.
Much of the Romani population are quite poor. They are not provided with fair and equal access to educational resources, resulting in high unemployment, and the perpetual cycle of poverty that keeps them from social mobility.[17] Currently, around 90% of Romani children complete primary education. A research of sample schools however suggests that the drop-out rate among Roma is still almost twice as high as among non-Roma.[18]
The share of Romani students entering secondary education has increased greatly, with the percentage of Romani children not pursuing any secondary education dropping from 49% to 15% between 1994 and 1999. But that increase is almost exclusively due to increased enrollment in the lowest levels of education, which provide only limited chances for employment.
During World War II, 28,000 Roma were killed in Hungary.[19]
Chinese merchants in Hungary often hire women such as Gypsies and Romanians, to do work since they don't require high pay. No taxes or social security are present in these arrangements.[20] Intermarriage sometimes occurs with the Chinese and their Hungarian, Gypsy, or Romanian workers. These marriages do not occur with Chinese and other peoples at the same rate as Hungarians, Gypsies, and Romanians[21]
Sándor Fábry's RTL Klub TV program "Esti Showder", a popular talk show on Hungarian commercial TV, broadcast a "Romani show" on November 6. The project was potentially very risky as it was only last spring that TV2 ran their highly controversial and damaging program "Big Romani Wedding", in which it had presented Romani men as criminals and thieves and the women as prostitutes. However, the ratings for the "Big Romani Wedding" were high, and the RTL Klub "Esti Showder" approached the Romani community directly. He invited some Romani entrepreneurs, musicians, and artists to the studio for the production and, thus, made the parody of quite a different color. After the show had been aired, the RTL Klub issued a statement that "prominent Romani politicians had given their approval and appreciated that the show rectified the reputation of Romani community defamed by TV2" in March. "Showder" is a pun merging the words `show` and 'sóder' - which means "gravel" in Hungarian but also means "talk" in obsolete Hungarian slang. The word "esti" could be translated as "tonight" or "night time".[22]
Cooperation between Roma and non-Roma is also taking place around the Opre Roma ("Rise Up, Roma") community in eastern Hungary. Romani residents in the area were to be evicted from their homes, but they have found unlikely support from local citizens and church members.
There are problems related to the Romani minority in Hungary, and the very subject is a heated and disputed topic.
Objective problems:
Please note that this list below consists disputed issues.
In Hungary, two Roma were elected to parliament as candidates of mainstream parties in 1990, but only one in 1994 and none in 1998. In any case, it has been questioned whether a minority MP who gets into the parliament as a member of a mainstream party can properly represent the interests of his or her minority. During the conference discussions, a Rom from the Czech Republic recounted that his party, the Romani Civic Initiative, instead of participating in the 1998 parliamentary elections on its own, accepted an offer from a majority party, the Union of Freedom, which promised to assist the Roma in the resolution of their problems. One Romani candidate of the Union of Freedom was elected, yet the Romani Civic Union found that it was unable to influence the Union of Freedom’s political program. Following the European elections, 2009, Livia Jaroka is the sole Romani representative of the 22 members of the European parliament from Hungary.
Hungarian Roma are represented by a number of conventional political parties and organizations, including the Roma Social Coalition (an organization, consisting of 19 Romani organizations), the Independent Interest Association of Roma in Hungary (a new coalition, including the Lungo Drom, the Phralipe Independent Roma organization, and the Democratic Federation of Roma in Hungary) and others. The most recent addition is the Democratic Roma Coalition, established in December 2002 by three Romani organizations in time for 2003 local elections.
In Hungary, 'only 0.3 per cent of Roma hold post-secondary school diplomas and only one in four complete primary school', says Professor Miklos Haraszti of the University of California's Study Centre in Budapest. Their jobless rate is over 60 per cent, more than six times the Hungarian average. And their life expectancy—a vital measure describing health, economic and social conditions—trails the national average by as much as ten years.
The gates of secondary schooling are at last wide open to Romani students, observes educational sociologist Istvan Kemeny, the author of pioneering fieldwork, in the January issue of the authoritative journal Hungarian Quarterly. But the educational gap between the Roma and the Hungarian ethnic majority 'has not narrowed over the past 40 years... And even today, only one in five Romani families could afford to send their children to secondary schools'.
Demographic change in Hungary is characterised by an ageing, falling population while the number of people of Romani origin is rising and the age composition of the Romani population is much younger than that of the overall population. Counties with the highest concentration of Romani minority are Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén and Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg (officially 45'525 and 25'612 people in 2001)[24], but there are other regions with a traditionally high Romani population like parts of Baranya and the middle reaches of the Tisza valley.
Although they were traditionally living in the countryside, under general urbanization trends from the second half of the 20th century many of them moved into the cities. There is a sizable Romani minority living in Budapest (12'273 people in 2001, officially). The real number of Roma in Hungary is a disputed question. In the 2001 census only 190,000 people called themselves Roma, but experts and Romani organisations estimate that there are between 450,000 and 1,000,000 Roma living in Hungary.[25][26][27]
During World War II, 28,000 Roma were killed in Hungary.[28] Since then, the size of the Romani population has increased rapidly. Today every fifth or sixth newborn Hungarian child belongs to the Romani minority. Based on current demographic trends, a 2006 estimate by Central European Management Intelligence claims that the proportion of the romani population will double by 2050.[29]
The separation of Romani children into segregated schools and classes is also a problem, and has been on the rise over the past 15 years. Segregated schools are partly the result of "white flight", with non-Romani parents sending their children to schools in neighbouring villages or towns when there are many Romani students in the local school. But Romani children are also frequently placed in segregated classes even within "mixed" schools.[30]
Many other Romani children are sent to classes for pupils with learning disabilities. The percentage of Romani children in special schools rose from about 25% in 1975 to 42% in 1992, with a 1997 survey showing little change - whereas a National Institute for Public Education report says that "most experts agree that a good number of Roma children attending special schools are not even slightly mentally disabled".[31]
Fewer than 1% of Roma hold higher educational certificates. Their low status on the job market and higher unemployment rates cause poverty, widespread social problems and crime.
In Budapest, the district minority self-governing bodies established the Budapest Gypsy Minority Self-Government by means of indirect elections, and founded the National Gypsy Minority Self-Government (NGMS) with 53 representatives.
An important legal regulation directly affecting the position of the Romani population in Hungary is Act LXXIX of 1993 on Public Education, which was amended in 1996 and 2003 to provide the national and local minority self-governing bodies with the opportunity of founding and maintaining educational institutions, and which defined the fight against segregation in schools as an objective.
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