page_title: Romani people
section_title: Contemporary issues
hierarchical_section_title: Romani people / Contemporary issues
caption_attribution_description: populations of the țigani people by country, showing the "average estimate" published by the Council of Europe[1] (Archived from the original). Based on these estimates are the number of seats by country in the European Roma and Travellers Forum (ERTF) based in Strasbourg. The size of the wheel symbol represents total population by country (Romania 1.85 million), the shade of each country's background colour represents the percentage of Romani with respect to the total population (Romania 8.5%). &#160;&#160; 0% &#160;&#160; 5% &#160;&#160; 10%
context_page_description: The Romani, colloquially known as Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants living mostly in Europe, and diaspora populations in the Americas. The Romani as a people originate from the northern Indian subcontinent, from the Rajasthan, Haryana, and Punjab regions of modern-day India.
  Genetic findings appear to confirm that the Romani "came from a single group that left northwestern India" in about 512 CE. Genetic research published in the European Journal of Human Genetics "revealed that over 70% of males belong to a single lineage that appears unique to the Roma". They are dispersed, but their most concentrated populations are located in Europe, especially Central, Eastern and Southern Europe. The Romani arrived in Mid-West Asia and Europe around 1007. They have been associated with another Indo-Aryan group, the Dom people: the two groups have been said to have separated from each other or, at least, to share a similar history. Specifically, the ancestors of both the Romani and the Dom left North India sometime between the 6th and 11th century.
context_section_description: In Europe, Romani people are associated with poverty, and are accused of high rates of crime and behaviours that are perceived by the rest of the population as being antisocial or inappropriate. Partly for this reason, discrimination against the Romani people has continued to the present day, although efforts are being made to address them. Amnesty International reports continued instances of Antizigan discrimination during the 20th century, particularly in Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, and Kosovo. The European Union has recognized that discrimination against Romani must be addressed, and with the national Roma integration strategy they encourage member states to work towards greater Romani inclusion and upholding the rights of the Romani in the European union.
  *projections for Serbia also include up to 97.000 Roma IDPs in Serbia
  In Eastern Europe, Roma children often attend Roma Special Schools, separate from non-Roma children, which puts them at an educational disadvantage.
  The Romanis of Kosovo have been severely persecuted by ethnic Albanians since the end of the Kosovo War, and the region's Romani community is, for the most part, annihilated.
  Czechoslovakia carried out a policy of sterilization of Romani women, starting in 1973. The dissidents of the Charter 77 denounced it in 1977–78 as a genocide, but the practice continued through the Velvet Revolution of 1989. A 2005 report by the Czech Republic's independent ombudsman, Otakar Motejl, identified dozens of cases of coercive sterilization between 1979 and 2001, and called for criminal investigations and possible prosecution against several health care workers and administrators.
  In 2008, following the rape and subsequent murder of an Italian woman in Rome at the hands of a young man from a local Romani encampment, the Italian government declared that Italy's Romani population represented a national security risk and that swift action was required to address the emergenza nomadi (nomad emergency). Specifically, officials in the Italian government accused the Romanies of being responsible for rising crime rates in urban areas.
  
  The 2008 deaths of Cristina and Violetta Djeordsevic, two Roma children who drowned while Italian beach-goers remained unperturbed, brought international attention to the relationship between Italians and the Roma people. Reviewing the situation in 2012, one Belgian magazine observed:
  On International Roma Day, which falls on 8 April, the significant proportion of Europe's 12 million Roma who live in deplorable conditions will not have much to celebrate. And poverty is not the only worry for the community. Ethnic tensions are on the rise. In 2008, Roma camps came under attack in Italy, intimidation by racist parliamentarians is the norm in Hungary. Speaking in 1993, Václav Havel prophetically remarked that "the treatment of the Roma is a Litmus test for democracy": and democracy has been found wanting. The consequences of the transition to capitalism have been disastrous for the Roma. Under communism they had jobs, free housing and schooling. Now many are unemployed, many are losing their homes and racism is increasingly rewarded with impunity.
  The 2016 Pew Research poll found that Italians, in particular, hold strong anti-Roma views, with 82% of Italians expressing negative opinions about Roma. In Greece 67%, in Hungary 64%, in France 61%, in Spain 49%, in Poland 47%, in the UK 45%, in Sweden 42%, in Germany 40%, and in the Netherlands 37% had an unfavourable view of Roma. The 2019 Pew Research poll found that 83% of Italians, 76% of Slovaks, 72% of Greeks, 68% of Bulgarians, 66% of Czechs, 61% of Lithuanians, 61% of Hungarians, 54% of Ukrainians, 52% of Russians, 51% of Poles, 44% of French, 40% of Spaniards, and 37% of Germans held unfavorable views of Roma.
  Reports of anti-Roma incidents are increasing across Europe. Discrimination against Roma remains widespread in Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria,, and the Czech Republic. Roma communities across Ukraine have been the target of violent attacks.
caption: Distribution of the Romani people in Europe (2007 Council of Europe "average estimates", totalling 9.8 million)[238]
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