Core Areas

Following on extensive background research and consultations with local stakeholders in the course of preparing the project, four core areas were chosen for the purposes of the needs assessment:

In the 2001-2002 academic year, Romani children accounted for 1.7% of all children enrolled in primary school but approximately 3% of the total population in Macedonia between the ages of five and fourteen (i.e., the ages of primary school attendance), placing Romani attendance well below the state-wide average of 84%. Reasons for low school attendance among Roms include not only the direct costs associated with sending children to school (e.g., books, supplies, transportation, and fees), but also the opportunity cost of so doing instead of sending the children to earn money through work (e.g., selling consumer goods) or begging.

The gap between the Romani population and the general population widens considerably at the level of secondary education: Comprising approximately 3% of children aged fifteen to nineteen (i.e., the ages of secondary school attendance), Roms accounted for 0.6% of secondary school students in the 2001-2002 academic year, placing Romani secondary school attendance at less than a quarter of the state-wide average.

In the 2002-2003 academic year, Roms comprised 0.3% of students enrolled in institutions of higher education in the Republic of Macedonia. Stated in absolute numbers, there were 134 Romani students in that year. As low as this number is, it points to significant improvement over the last decade: whereas in the 1993-94 academic year there were nine self-identified Roms enrolled at universities in the Republic of Macedonia, by the 1998-99 academic year there were 24 Roms enrolled at Macedonian universities, with enrolment reaching 40 in the 2000-2001 academic year. Also worthy of note is that women account for over half (62%) of the Romani student population.

The educational disadvantage of the Romani population in Macedonia relative to the general population is summarized in the table below.

Table 1. Educational attainment

ROMANI EDUCATORS
In the 2000-2001 academic year, Romani primary school teachers accounted for 0.1% of all primary school teachers in the country. In secondary education, a total of two teachers of Romani ethnicity were employed during the 1992-1993 year. Finally, of the 569 professors employed at state-sponsored institutions of higher education in Macedonia in the 1997-98 academic year, 528 were ethnic Macedonians, four were Vlachs, four Turks, three Albanians, and two were Roms.

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Although the total fertility rate for Roms in Macedonia tends to be approximately twice as high as the total fertility rate for the general population, it is also the case that the infant mortality rate for Roms is twice the statistic for the general population. Further, adult Roms in Macedonia have a considerably lower life expectancy than do non-Roms, with Roms' share of Macedonia's total population dropping off sharply after age 40. As will be discussed in greater detail in the findings of the focus groups on health, Roms' lower life expectancy stems from a combination of poor living conditions, lack of access to healthcare, and insufficient awareness of preventive healthcare practices.

In the course of their relatively short lives, Roms are disproportionately afflicted by infectious and chronic ailments. More specifically, whereas upper respiratory diseases are most common among Roms under age fourteen (with diarrhoea a major problem for Romani infants), Romani adults suffer frequently from high blood pressure and various types of neuroses. Early pregnancies are also a major cause of health problems for both mother and child, with approximately one quarter of girls between the ages of fifteen and nineteen in Šuto Orizari giving birth (as compared with approximately ten percent within Macedonia's general population).

Compounding pre-existing problems, the introduction of a participation fee for medical care in the state health care system has resulted in a visible drop in the frequency with which Romani patients seek medical counsel. Moreover, the range of drugs available through local producers has decreased in recent years, leading to the replacement of locally produced pharmaceuticals with more expensive foreign-produced medication. This leads in turn to poor therapy compliance for economic reasons.

Roms' high fertility rate and short lifespan combine to make the Romani population younger than the general population of Macedonia. Otherwise stated, the proportion of children is higher and the proportion of older persons is lower among Roms than within the general population.

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Roms are disproportionately represented among stateless persons and persons with unknown citizenship resident in the Republic of Macedonia, with the Macedonian government in 1997 reporting the presence on Macedonian territory of 4 356 stateless Roms and 7 407 Roms with unknown citizenship (out of 18 851 stateless persons and 68 989 persons of unknown citizenship). The problems with citizenship experienced by many Roms stem in large part from the 1992 citizenship law's requirements of a source of regular income, fifteen years of legal residence in Macedonia, fluency in the Macedonian language, and administrative fees of $50 to $250 (depending on when the application was submitted). Whereas the requirement of a permanent source of funds has proven problematic because of high rates of unemployment, the residence requirement of fifteen years has been an obstacle for the many Roms who had never registered as residents of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia when they moved from other republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (many well over fifteen years earlier). The language requirement, on the other hand, excluded some young Roms returned from the West European countries where they had grown up, such that they had relatively little exposure to Macedonian. Additionally, a lack of easily accessible information on the terms of the law effectively deprived many Roms of the opportunity to apply for citizenship in time to avoid paying the higher fee associated with naturalization.

Whereas ethnically motivated violence against Roms in Macedonia seems to be a rare occurrence, the same cannot be said of police brutality. Although ethnically disaggregated statistical data on police brutality are not available in the Republic of Macedonia, reports by human rights monitors suggest that police are likely to beat detainees of any ethnicity, and even more likely to beat members of minorities, including Roms. Here, it is important to note that the geographical distribution of police brutality against Roms appears to be quite uneven, being reported more frequently in Eastern Macedonia than in Western Macedonia. Also significant is that in disputes involving Roms and ethnic Macedonians, police tend to side with the latter. While attempts to pursue redress for police brutality in Macedonia have generally been unsuccessful (as well as rare), the fact that Romani citizens aware of their rights have proven that the justice system may be used against civilian state employees even for infractions not involving physical violence points to the utility of human rights education.

Domestic violence is a taboo subject among all ethnic groups in the Republic of Macedonia, and hard data on such violence are not available. Nonetheless, insofar as domestic violence occurs within the Romani population (as it does within other ethnic groups), increased attention to the dynamics of such violence is necessary.

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Whereas estimates from the national Employment Bureau and the Institute of Economics indicate an overall unemployment rate of over 40% in 2002, a government workforce survey from the previous year estimated the unemployment rate among Roms to be 71.8%. Additionally, a UNICEF survey conducted in 1996 found that 97.7% of Romani women surveyed lacked regular or even temporary employment.

According to the Ministry of Finance, Roms accounted for 0.7% of the employed population in the Republic of Macedonia in the year 2000. Expressed in terms of unemployment, Roms comprised 3.7% of the total number of unemployed persons registered with the Employment Office of the Republic of Macedonia in the same year. Further, Roms' share among persons unemployed for four years or longer is 4.3%.

Although ethnically based discrimination against Roms on the employment market is not unheard of, Roms' comparative disadvantage seems to be related mostly to their low level of educational attainment. Whereas 6.1% of the unemployed population in the Republic of Macedonia in 2000 had not completed at least primary education, the proportion of unemployed Roms in Bitola who had not completed primary school, for example, was nearly 100%. Also contributing to the current situation is Roms' socio-economic position under the previous regime, as a result of which they are poorly positioned to benefit from the systemic corruption that has characterized the post-Communist period in Macedonia.

As the findings of the focus groups demonstrate, if unemployment is often a result of low educational attainment, it is also a cause thereof insofar as it largely determines the material conditions within which Romani families live. At the same time, the material conditions which depend primarily on employment affect the health of the persons who live in those conditions. In this manner, unemployment, low educational attainment, and poor health form a vicious circle.

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