The Roma civil society of Moldova called upon the authorities to provide special allowances and dwellings to the Romanies who live in difficult conditions. The Coalition “Voice of Romanies” also asked removing discrimination and ensuring transparency in the management of the financial resources allocated to the Roma in Moldova.
In a news conference at IPN, Ion Duminica, expert of the Coalition “Voice of Romanies”, said that most of the Romanies face such acute problems as the lack of homes, high school non-attendance rate among the Romany children and the absence of community mediators who would make the voice of the Romanies in Chisinau municipality heard. In Chisinau, there are no social dwellings intended for the Romanies. According to the Roma civil society, this is discrimination in relation to other socially disadvantaged people who receive social dwellings from the municipality.
Ion Duminica said that a large part of the Roma families include by ten members and live in homes that are several square meters in area. Owing to the difficult living conditions, many families caught tuberculosis. A serious problem is also the erroneous statistics about the real number of Romanies in Moldova.
Vasile Drangoi, head of the public association “International Romani Union” of Moldova, said the members of the Roma community from the country and abroad took the first census of the Romany people in Moldova. It was established that the real number of Romanies in Moldova is tens of times higher than the authorities announced. There are over 102,000 Romany people in Moldova at present, not 11,000 as the last official census of 2004 showed. Over 10,000 Romanies live in Soroca town alone.
“The figure of 10,000-14,000 that is permanently discussed does not present the reality, but nobody wanted to have an exact figure about the number of Romanies living in Moldova. The data of our census can be compared with those that will be collected in the population census that started today,” said Vasile Drangoi.
In the same connection, Drangoi said it’s painful that the 12,000 census takers that will count the homes and the people do not include Romanies. The term for implementing the Government decision on the solving of problems of the Romanies for 2011-2015 will soon expire, but those responsible will not have much to report.
For his part, head of the public organization “Bare-Rom” Robert Cecari said the representative of the Roma in the Government should promote the rights of the Romanies, but he is not even a Romani and was named to post in order to implement a recommendation made by the Europeans. “We do not want to keep silent. We know our rights and want to be fully-fledged citizens of Moldova. We do not want the Romanies from Moldova to be in the same situation as the Romanies in France or other European countries,” he stated.
The members of the Roma civil society of Moldova added that owing to the assistance provided by the international community, they worked out a model of communication between the government institutions and the Romanies so as to solve the problems of the Roma. They can offer it to the Moldovan authorities on condition that they deal with the problems faced by the Romanies in Moldova.
