Roma Association Says Housing, Infrastructure Biggest Problems
Jozek Horvat Muc, the head of the Slovenian Roma Association, believes that the biggest problems for the Roma in Slovenia are housing and infrastructure. It cannot make Slovenia proud that some Roma settlements are still without electricity or water, he told Friday a visiting delegation of the International Romani Union (IRU).
Horvat Muc added that out of 105 Roma settlements in Slovenia, only 34 are legal but that does not mean that the remainder are not suitable for habitation.
According to him, the first step towards solving the issue was made by the recent establishment of an expert task force at the Environment and Spatial Planning Ministry.
Addressing the press after talks in Murska Sobota (NE), Horvat Muc also said that while the Roma were one of the three officially recognised minorities in Slovenia, their status could not be compared to that of Italian and Hungarian minorities.
The IRU delegation, headed by president Stanislaw Stankiewicz, meanwhile presented the meeting of the Roma parliament, which meets once a year in a different country.
The delegation said the problems of the Slovenian Roma were similar to those in other parts of the world. At their meeting with Horvat Muc they called for integration with the majority population.
Stankiewicz added that the IRU opposed the distinction between autochthonous and non-autochthonous Roma and stressed the importance of counseling institutions for educating the Roma on their rights regarding education and employment.
He added that the Roma were given substantial European funds for solving their residential issues in other European countries, as opposed to Slovenia.
According to the IRU, some 16 million Roma live around the world, 12 million of those in Europe.
The IRU was officially established at the second World Romani Congress in 1978. Its tasks include maintaining and developing cultural traditions, customs and language of the Roma and taking part in tackling economic, social, cultural, educational, and humanitarian problems of the Roma in their countries.
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