The members of the Technical Working Group of Romanies, which includes representatives of civil society, called on the authorities to financially support the completion of the construction of two buildings with social apartments located on Pietrarilor St in Chisinau, where Roma families are to move too.
In a news conference at IPN on April 8, managing member of the Group Petru Baranciuc said about 83 million lei is needed to complete the works on the two blocks. “When the apartment buildings are ready, 125 Roma families in need and 100 non-Roma families will benefit from social apartments there,” he stated. The Roma civil society will submit a petition to the Government whereby they will ask improving the living conditions of the representatives of the Roma community, which continues to form part of the most disadvantaged groups of people in Europe.
The executive director of the public association “Porojan” Ion Duminica said the problems of the Romanies were discussed in a roundtable meeting at the Government today. Among the addressed issues were the continuation of the process of employing Roma community mediators and their remuneration and the working out of a plan of action for supporting the Romani people for 2016-2020. But it wasn’t yet agreed who will draft these policies and which institutions will monitor their implementation.
The International Roma Day has been marked in Moldova on April 8 since 2002. According to the first census of the Romanies taken in Moldova in 2014, the real number of Romani people is ten times higher than the authorities announced. Currently, in Moldova there are over 102,000 Romanies, not 11,000 as the census of 2004 showed.
