The Roma community suggests instituting a central public administration entity whose mission will be to ensure intersectoral coordination and to monitor the level of implementation of the measures assumed through the Program for the support of the Roma population in the Republic of Moldova (2022-2025), in the 60 localities that are densely populated by Romanies. The recommendation was formulated following the identification of a high rate of non-inclusion of Roma children in the educational system as a result of the monitoring of the implementation of the Program’s measures.
CVR expert and member Ion Duminică, in a news conference at IPN, said the rate of inclusion in early educational institutions among children aged six is 23%, among children aged between 7 and 16 is 39.5%. Considerable discrepancies among the data finished by educational institutions and by Roma community mediators as regards the school inclusion rate were identified in Edineț. There, the education authorities told that 100% of the Roma children aged between 7 and 16 are included in the educational process, while the mediators reported a figure of 12.5%. The children who are not integrated into the educational process are to be identified together with decision makers. The lowest school inclusion rate is in Otaci, Ocnița, where 5.7% of the Roma children go to school. This information differs from the data provided by the public administration of the second level.
The Roma community recommends the education authorities, in cooperation with representatives of the Roma and international organizations, to work out and support projects to ensure equitable access to education for the Roma children. Also, socio-educational assistants should be employed to monitor the continuous involvement of the disadvantaged Roma children in compulsory education.
Ion Duminică noted that the Roma community does not generate interethnic problems and is a community with a social complex of intersectoral weaknesses. Over the past 20 years, the Roma community has been addressed exclusively from the interethnic angle and interethnic culture has been promoted, but the intersectoral problem of the community was omitted. As a result, the community acquired a social complex of intersectoral weaknesses.
Marin Alla, executive director of the Coalition “Voice of the Roma” (CVR), said the Coalition is the institution that aims and was created to make the common voice of the Roma community in Moldova heard by decision mailers, by public institutions. In 2022, the Cabinet approved Government decision 576, regarding the Program for the support of the Roma population in the Republic of Moldova (2022-2025). Regrettably, this program, which has been monitored, practically hasn’t been implemented. Also, unfavorable conditions for the decent living of the Romanies and preconditions for these not to be integrated into society and not to be active are created.
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