Student holds benefit concert in Holliston for return trip to Romania

By Kelsey Abbruzzese/Daily News correspondent
Tue Sep 01, 2009, 08:46 AM EDT

A Rivers School senior hoping to return to Romania and help abandoned and disabled children there is holding a benefit concert in Holliston to raise money for her trip.

Alicia Palmisano, who grew up in Holliston and now lives in Natick, first went to Romania as part of a school service trip in March 2008. After playing with babies who had been abandoned at a hospital, doing art projects at an after-school program and helping Gypsy children with their homework, Palmisano and four others decided a six-day trip was too short.

She and the other students are looking to raise about $1,500 to cover trip expenses for another visit in May with Romanian Children's Relief. Palmisano has organized the concert with her Weston school's ensemble, The Rivers School Conservatory Honors Marimba Ensemble.

"You fall in love with the kids and feel like the trip was way too short, even though you were there for six days," Palmisano said yesterday. "Once you get into rhythm and get to know the kids well, it's time to leave. I want to go back and see if anything's improved."

The concert will take place Sept. 20 at 11:30 a.m. in Palmisano's church, St. Michael's Episcopal in Holliston.

Eileen McHenry, executive director of Romanian Children's Relief in Southborough, said the combination of the recession, a moratorium on hiring government workers - which includes foster parents - and disappearing charity funds have left more children abandoned in Romania.

"With the economic crisis, Eastern Europe is taking a bigger hit and the poorest people are the ones feeling it most," McHenry said. "The babies end up spending months in the hospital. It's really bad."

Palmisano remembers many of the children she saw during her trip. She recalled giving a piggyback ride to one of the Gypsy children all afternoon, and then returning with the children to their homes. Their houses were one room off an alley, Palmisano said.

When the students were leaving to come back to Massachusetts, Palmisano said, the children tried jumping into their backpacks, saying, "Bring us to America!"

"We all had journals, and they wrote their names and wrote 'I love you' in Romanian," Palmisano said.

McHenry said she's happy to see Palmisano and her classmates want to return.

"We just thrive on their enthusiasm. We've been doing this a long time, and people forget about Romania. The rest of the world has moved on to other crises," McHenry said. "When you have young, energetic people come in and give you a boost, it's wonderful."

The ensemble has performed at Symphony Hall, the Tsai Center, various Boston hotels and local community centers, Palmisano said. She also said the concert will be free, but the group will be accepting donations for the trip.

How Gypsy gangs use child thieves

BBC NEWS

By Sam Bagnall
This World

Across Europe thousands of Roma (Gypsy) children are being forced onto the streets to beg and steal, and law enforcement agencies are seemingly powerless to prevent it.

Cash machines in Madrid are a particular target for street crime. The cardholder is distracted at the crucial moment by one person, allowing a child to dive in, grab the money and run off.

Thirteen-year-old Daniela says she can make 300 euros (£260) from a single successful robbery without any risk of being punished.


"It's only the police that catch us. They take the money we have on us. They take us to the day centre, and the centre lets us go.

"I give [the money] to my mother so we can go to Romania to build a house. But I hide some of it for myself. I give her 150 euros, and I keep 150."

Madrid police say that 95% of children under 14 that they pick up stealing on the streets are Roma from Romania.

Because the age of criminal responsibility in Spain is 14, there is little they can do.

More than 1,000 Romanian Roma live in just one of the many camps that lie on the outskirts of Madrid.

The conditions are appalling - rats roam freely amid the rubbish, and there is no sanitation.

Every day children from the camp head out into the city to steal and beg, and many are beaten by their minders if they do not return with money.

Organised crime

Nowhere in Europe has there been more controversy over crime in the Roma community than in Italy, where the government recently declared a state of emergency following various high profile crimes blamed on the Roma.

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Schools exclude pupils less often

The number of exclusions from England's schools went down last year, latest figures show.

There were 8,130 permanent exclusions from primary, secondary and special schools in 2007-08, 6.4% less than the year before.

There were 383,830 fixed period exclusions, down 9.8%. Boys featured in three times as many cases as girls.

The number of appeals lodged by parents dropped a quarter to 780. Of these 26% succeeded, up 1.3 percentage points.

Appeal panels ordered children to be reinstated in their school in just over a third of the successful cases (35%), down five percentage points on the previous year.

Pupils from black Caribbean backgrounds were three times as likely as all children to be permanently excluded and twice as likely to be suspended (given a fixed period exclusion).

The exclusion rate was highest for Gypsy/Roma children, though they accounted for fewer than 2,000 cases in total nationally.

'Myth'

Shadow Schools Minister Nick Gibb said: "There is a serious problem with discipline and poor behaviour in English schools.

"The fact that nearly 500 children a day return to school after assaulting an adult or a classmate shows that teachers do not have sufficient powers to keep control."

The statistics show there were 71,330 fixed period exclusions for assaulting another pupil and 17,870 for attacking an adult - though both sets of figures were lower than last year.

But Children's Minister Dawn Primarolo said: "It is time to put to bed the myth that behaviour is deteriorating with teachers powerless to act.

"The truth is that we have given teachers the powers they asked for to tackle bad discipline and today's figures, as well as the trend over the last several years, show that the action we have taken is working in improving discipline in schools."

'Fiddling'

She said programmes such as Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (Seal), which ensures that young people understand the consequences of their actions and are taught how to respond to situations responsibly, had had a positive impact on discipline.

"But we can always do more and that is why we have strengthened home-school agreements to make sure the worst behaved children have clear expectations of behaviour and schools can force parents to take action if they do not live up to these expectations."

Liberal Democrat spokesman David Laws said: "Although permanent exclusions are down, there is a strong suspicion that the government is fiddling the figures by not declaring the transfer from one school to another of children who have effectively been excluded.

"Yet again, we can see a divide between rich and poor in our education system, with those children entitled to free school meals being far more likely to be excluded."

Poverty

It was this aspect that most concerned a charity that works with excluded youngsters, UK Youth.

Children entitled to free school meals were three times as likely as the average to be excluded, and secondary schools in the most deprived areas had more exclusions than those in the least deprived areas, it noted.

UK Youth chief executive John Bateman said: "Young people who are at risk of exclusion need access to a personalised curriculum that motivates them together with support from teachers, youth workers and mentors who can provide appropriate support and guidance."

He said they responded well to being given access to vocational subjects which allowed them to gain skills and qualifications and to have a clear sense of how to manage their lives when they left school.

Gypsy families in Kosovo on toxic land

NORTH MITROVICA, Kosovo No one seems to care about the gypsies.

Displaced by conflict and stranded by bureaucratic inertia, dozens of gypsy families remain on toxic land 10 years after they were relocated there by the United Nations after the Kosovo war.

Lead blackens the children's teeth, blanks out memories and stunts growth. Other symptoms of lead poisoning include aggressive behavior, nervousness, dizziness, vomiting and high fever. The children swing between bursts of nervous hyperactivity and fainting spells. Some have epileptic fits.

The two resettlement camps — the Osterrode and Chesmin Lug — were established by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1999 for gypsies, or Roma, as they are more commonly known in Europe. A traditionally nomadic people, the Roma share a common heritage that sets them apart as an ethnic group, with their largest populations in Central and Eastern Europe.

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Romania: Gypsies Celebrate Roma Day, Yet Fear Reigns

Written by Chuck Todaro
Thursday, 30 April 2009

April 8th marked the Twentieth International Roma Day since the Gypsies of Eastern Europe broke free of the communist’s amalgamated "national minority" status and began openly acknowledging their heritage. However, according to the US State Department 2007 Country Report on Human Rights, Romania, home to Europe’s largest Roma population, is the setting for some of the most pervasive societal violence and discrimination against Roma. "This day offers the press the chance to reverse the usual negative stereotypes," says Roma journalist Rudolf Moca during the ceremonies at the Apalina Public School in the Eastern Transylvania town of Reghin.

The day long celebration at Apalina begins in the school courtyard with speeches, the singing of the Roma National anthem Djelem Djelem, followed by a barefoot Roma dance performance, concluding with a skit portraying a confrontation between young Romani men being settled with a dance competition: the fastest dancer possessing the more complicated moves and greatest stamina exits the showdown with his head up and a woman under his arm.

Roma day has a special significance for the 4,000 Gypsies living along the two parallel roads at Apalina that bears the reputation as a den of thieves. "Whatever goes missing in town, I can guarantee you can find it at Apalina," comments Maria, a downtown barmaid.

"When I go on my jobs, my boss reminds me not to tell them that I am from Apalina, he says to say I’m from somewhere else, or else they wont have any work for me," says Dani Racz, who like many at the Roma of Apalina works the traditional trade of laying paving stones, a skill he learned from his father who learned from his father before him.

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Gypsy children fed poisonous rice

Staff Report

LAHORE: Around 10 gypsy children went unconscious on Monday after some unidentified person provided them with poisonous rice in F-Block near Liaqat Chowk in the Sabzazar area.Rescue 1122 officials reached the scene and shifted the children to the Jinnah Hospital. The victims were identified as Tanveer Akram (5), Mani (4), Ali Hussain (7), Nirma (4), Moona (4), Ayesha (6), Sidra (7) and Shagufta (4).

Gypsies relocated by UN remain on toxic land

Refugees from Kosovo conflict have developed severe health problems after decade on contaminated land.

By J. Malcolm Garcia - Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
Published: April 14, 2009 21:02 ET
Updated: April 14, 2009 22:21 ET-A

NORTH MITROVICA, Kosovo — Displaced by conflict and stranded by bureaucratic inertia, dozens of Roma families remain on toxic land 10 years after they were relocated there by the United Nations following the Kosovo war.

Osterrode Camp and Chesmin Lug Camp were established by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 1999 as a temporary measure, when the 9,000-member Roma or gypsy neighborhood on the southern shore of the Ibar River was burnt down by Albanians in the dying days of the Kosovo conflict. The Albanians had accused the Roma of collaborating with the Serb army, a charge the Roma dismiss as unfounded.

Whatever the truth behind the charges and denials, almost everyone agrees that moving Roma families near the now closed Trepca mining and smelting complex, onto land highly contaminated with lead, zinc, arsenic and other metals, has resulted in severe health problems in the community.

When the World Health Organization tested the Roma's blood for lead in 2004, the readings for 90 percent of the children were off the scale, higher than the medical equipment was capable of measuring. Such children fall into the category of "acute medical emergency" and require immediate hospitalization.

Instead they have remained in the camps, ingesting lead through the air, the dirt they play in and through their clothes dusted with lead tailings while drying on laundry lines. Even before their birth, lead enters their bodies from drinking water consumed by their mothers.

According to internationally accepted benchmarks drawn up by the United States Center for Disease Control, 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter causes the beginning of brain damage.

The measurements from the camps were much higher than in the surrounding population and at levels that exceeded any region WHO had previously studied. Twelve children had exceptionally high blood lead levels, greater than 45 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood, more than four times the amount that causes brain damage.

"The Roma are victimized by lead," said Thomas Hammarberg, European commissioner for human rights. "It is sad the international community has not found a solution 10 years later. It is the single most major environmental disaster in Europe."

Zoran Savich, a pediatrician with the Health Center of Kosovo Mitrovica, saw more than 300 patients in Osterrode and Chesmin Lug between 2005 and 2008.

In that time, Savich said, 77 people died of lead poisoning, many of them children.

"I treated as many I could but they were living in the same conditions and absorbing lead,” Savich said. “When the treatments stopped, their levels went back up. It was useless."

Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since June 1999, after the NATO bombing campaign on the troops of then-president Slobodan Milosevic, aimed at halting Belgrade's repression of the majority ethnic Albanian population seeking independence.

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Slovak police exposed over gypsy abuse

Published: April 8 2009 13:22 Last updated: April 8 2009 13:22

Wednesday may be International Roma Day, but Slovakia will not be celebrating any improvement in the status of its gypsies.

Instead, police inspectors will be poring over tapes depicting their colleagues humiliating Roma children in scenes reminiscent of Abu Ghraib.

Half a dozen videos apparently shot by police on March 21 at a local station in Kosice, eastern Slovakia show six Roma children being forced to strip naked, kiss each other on the cheek and then strike each other in the face.

In one shot, six young Roma boys standing in a tiny room begin pulling their clothes off. A voice from above shouts at them to be quick, that the last to disrobe will be punished. One thin boy hesitates to pull off his white underwear. “Take it all off!” a voice shouts. “Hands behind your heads!” The camera that is filming this humiliating scene closes in on the boys’ genitals and then pans out to capture one of them looking up at his tormentors.

In another scene, police in uniform are restraining dogs that are barking at the same six boys. One of them is hiding behind a desk. The sound of crying can be heard. “Shut up, stop crying!” shouts a voice. “Bunch of fucking gypsies.”

In still another, the boys are made to kiss each other on the cheek and then slap each other in the face. “Give him a good one! And now you, hit him back! Now kiss each other,” says the hidden cameraman. “Hit him and shut up. I’ll tell you when to stop. If he ducks, I’ll kick him.”

Uniformed police officers can be seen filming the action on their cameras and mobile phones. The police spectators laugh as the boys, uncertain, keep looking around for instructions. “What kind of a punch was that? Hit him as hard as he hit you!”

Contacted at home in Kosice, Ivan Kroscen, 13, said that he and his friends had stolen a purse at a Kosice shopping mall, and after being arrested had been taken by the police to a downtown precinct. Their parents were not called until after their interrogation, he said. They are all in their early to mid teens.

“They kept laughing at us, and told us not to be afraid of the dogs because they were young ones,” he said. “But one bit me on the leg and in the bum.”

At a press conference on April 7 after the videos surfaced, the country’s top policeman, Jan Packa, said that up to eight policemen would be fired as a result, and that they would be charged with abuse of power. “These individuals have seriously harmed the good name of the Slovak police corps,” he said.

This is not the first time the Slovak police have been accused of abusing members of the country’s second-largest ethnic minority. In 2001, a 51-year-old Roma man was beaten to death while handcuffed to a radiator at a police station in eastern Slovakia. Seven of his police attackers were found guilty of torture last year.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

TĂRNĂ-ROM UNION INVITES GOVERNMENT TO PARTICIPATE MORE ACTIVELY IN SOLVING GYPSY CHILDREN’S EDUCATION PROBLEM

Chisinau. The Tărnă-Rom Union asks the Government and the Ministry of Education and Youth to participate more actively in solving the education problem of the Gypsy children.

Tărnă-Rom Chairman Marin Ala said at a News conference in Infotag on Tuesday that about 7 thousand Gypsy children live in Moldova and only 2.8 thousand of them attend school.

“Unfortunately, many Gypsies do not go to school because of their poverty. A monthly income of a Gypsy family does not exceed 400 lei. That is why, Gypsy children have nothing to put on and to eat. Under such conditions they cannot go to school”, Ala said.

In his words, another problem is the discrimination of Gypsy children, in the first place, by teachers, who place them separately and on last desks.

Ala recognized that there is the Moldovan Government’s decree concerning the Gypsy education, but there are no instruments for its implementation.

Everything looks very nice on paper, but in the real life there are no mechanisms, which would help Gypsy children to attend school and not to be subject to discrimination. We hope that the Government will hear us, assess the situation and work out a strategy, which will change the life of young Gypsies in Moldova for the better”, he said.

Romanian gypsy children become engaged aged six and four

A six-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl have become engaged to be married after a gypsy ceremony.

Victor Caldararu's grandfather and great uncle arranged the union with Maria Caldararu in the Sibiu region of Transylvania, Romania.

The children are Caldarari gypsies, who regularly become engaged and married while very young.

Every Caldarari has the surname Caldararu which means tin or coppersmith. Male Caldarari make their money from forging buckets, kettles, pots and boilers for distilling alcohol while the women are stay at home and look after the children.

While the tradition of childhood engagements is not illegal, it is mostly frowned upon in mainstream Romanian society.

The engagement ensures Victor and Maria remain in the Caldarari community and thousands of pounds exchanged hands between the families to confirm the deal.

Victor's great uncle Traian Caldararu, 47, said: "The arrangement and the celebration resemble a wedding.

"The difference is that we don't have a priest to bless the alliance. We spent 10,000 Lei (£2,286) for the event and all the Caldarari gypsies were present. They will marry by law as soon as Maria turns 16."

Once marriage arrangements are made it is very difficult for children to break the deal and choose another partner.

If a child decides to marry someone else then his or her family must pay back three times the dowry, accounting for inflation and banking interest rates.

"This outcome is very rare," said Traian, who mediates many marriages in the community. "Children are required to marry by their family. It is not really a child's choice."

Victor's family coughed up 50,000 Lei (£11,429) for Maria's hand, so if he changes his mind he'll financially cripple his father, Victor Caldarau, 26.

A split would also be considered a great dishonour for Maria who would have severe difficulty finding a new husband and could risk being outcast completely.

Traian said: "In our community girls are not disobeying. We don't let them out of the house and we don't let them go to school after fourth grade, they might get stolen away from us.

"We make sure that we give kids away to one of our lot, just like any other parent would do."

Victor and Maria have been raised together in the community and while they appear to enjoy playing together they're too young to understand their commitments.

Traian said: "The children didn't even know what was going on at the engagement ceremony. They thought it was just a usual party in the courtyard. Later they will be told and they will marry at 16 and 18-years-old."

In the Caldarari marriages are sometimes arranged before the child is even born.

Traian said: "My niece got engaged before the age of six to our friend's unborn child. Now the boy is 12 and our girl is 18. When the boy turns 16 he will marry her according to the deal."

Romania has the largest proportion of Gypsy people in the world. It's estimated that two million people or 5-10% of the population are Roma.

Romania joined the EU in 2007 but many gypsy customs are outside of EU regulations working on hundreds of years of tradition and ritual.

Times change even at the Gypsy bride market

Europe Features
By Elena Lalova Mar 12, 2009, 2:07 GMT

Mogila, Bulgaria - When a Roma from a southern Bulgarian clan is looking for a bride, he goes to the traditional gathering which his folk stage in Stara Zagora each year in late winter or early spring - though as of recently some brides want to dance more than to marry.

Gypsy families from the clan have for centuries presented their daughters for marriage at the so-called bride market in Mogila, a village 220 kilometres south-east of Sofia, on the first Saturday after Easter fasting begins.

Some 2,000 from far and near - from Bulgaria's second-largest city Plovidiv, from Yambol and Sliven - made the pilgrimage again last Saturday to eye would-be-brides in seductive dresses and plastic flowers in their hair.

'I came with my daughter, my friends with their son. They are to meet and fall in love,' Kalina, arriving from Kapitan Andreevo on the Turkish border, says without any beating around the bush.

A pretty bride does not come cheap - a family of a good-looking young woman would not give her away for marriage without compensation running into the 'thousands of euros,' a woman getting off a train at the nearby station says knowingly.

The festival, on a field in Mogila next to the cattle-and-poultry market, starts with an explosion of Oriental music streaming from speakers mounted on a centrally-parked car.

A 17-year-old girl in a bright-green dress and a 21-year-old trader from Haskovo jump on the roof of their Lada and start dancing, celebrating and announcing that they married 10 days before. As on cue, others send their daughters to dance on cars.

Soon many 17- and 18-year old girls are showing off their belly- dancing skills as entire families, many with small children in tow, mill about.

But not all dancers - as two sisters from Plovdiv, dressed in dark green and maroon gowns and with heavy golden necklaces - are in Mogila to find a husband. One of them, 18-year-old Darinka, says she is 'still too young.'

'Times have changed,' Kalina laments. Around 50, with a face deeply furrowed by hard life, she wears a long braid and a colourful headscarf - the traditional signs of a married woman.

When she was introduced to her husband at the same place many years ago, she was neither asked nor offered a chance to give an opinion about her own maturity for marriage.

The Roma who gathered in Mogila belong to one of the largest Christian-Orthodox clans, traditionally working as pewter craftsmen throughout southern Bulgaria.

'Before, the girls in our clan were wed at 15. Our young would meet here, because they were not going out to cafes and clubs,' says Mariyka, 76.

'We want to keep the tradition, despite all this novelty,' she says, cursing and pointing to a flashy mobile phone hanging around the neck of a young man and rows of gleaming, expensive cars lining the field.

Hungary's Roma bury victims in emotional funeral

Tue Mar 3, 2009 12:08pm EST

By Marton Dunai

TATARSZENTGYORGY, Hungary (Reuters) - Thousands, mostly Roma, joined the funeral procession Tuesday of a young boy and his father who were shot dead last week in the latest in a series of attacks on Roma in Hungary.

A crowd of about 5,000, which also included politicians from parliamentary parties and civil rights activists, gathered around the graves of the two victims in the village of Tatarszentgyorgy, 65 km (40 miles) southeast of Budapest.

Black-clad mourners wept and when the coffin was lowered into the grave in the small hillside cemetery, the world-famous 100-member Gypsy Symphony Orchestra started to play.

"We seek the forgiveness of the mourning family and...our Gypsy brethren whom for 500 years we have owed an embrace," Hungarian Methodist pastor Gabor Ivanyi, who is not Roma, said in a speech. "We are deeply moved and ashamed people."

The killings last Monday were the latest in a series of more than a dozen attacks on Roma in Hungary in which 7 people have died over the past year.

Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom said Saturday economic crisis had created an urgent need for Hungary and other east European countries to show more understanding for Roma.

It was not known whether the attack was racially motivated and police have so far failed to track down the perpetrators, but Roma community leaders said it bore similarities to other attacks on Roma in other parts of the country.

The boy, who police say was 5 years old, and his father Robert Csorba were shot dead as they were trying to escape their house, which had been set on fire. Two other children were injured in the blaze.

The Roma community is Hungary's largest minority making up 5 to 7 percent of the population of 10 million.

PROTECTION

There is a growing resentment against the Roma, also known as gypsies, as the economic crisis deepens and jobs are lost. The Roma often remain on the margins, lacking jobs and proper education and living in deep poverty. Critics say they take advantage of the welfare state.

The strengthening of the far-right over the past two years, which fights what it says is a rise in "Roma crime," has also contributed to a rise in antagonism, activists say.

The village of Tatarszentgyorgy, which has about 1,900 residents, has been shocked by the attack.

"We still cannot comprehend what happened and this sentiment rules in the entire village," a Roma couple said.

Peter Ignacz, 50, who arrived from Szolnok in the east of Hungary with around 30 members of his family and is also of Roma origin, says Roma do not get any protection and are afraid.

"This (attack) is totally outrageous, and to be honest, Roma people are afraid," he said.

(Reporting by Marton Dunai, Writing by Krisztina Than)

Gypsy vaccination scheme starts

By Guy Dinmore in Rome

Published: March 2 2009 01:32 Last updated: March 2 2009 01:32

Italy’s Red Cross has launched its biggest vaccination programme since the second world war, with the goal of immunising several thousand gypsy children living in camps around Rome.

The operation began at Casilino 900, a camp on the eastern outskirts of the capital that is believed to be one of the largest gypsy settlements in Europe. Some two dozen doctors were among 200 Red Cross volunteers that included clowns to provide entertainment in one of the big tents erected for the exercise.

(MORE)

Two die in attack on gypsy family

Published Date: 24 February 2009

A FATHER and his five-year-old son were shot dead in an attack on a Roma home in Hungary yesterday.

Two children were also injured when the house caught fire, local news MTI reported. The attack took place in Tatarszentgyorgy, 40 miles south-east of Budapest.

The full article contains 54 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.

Last Updated: 23 February 2009 11:39 PM
Source: The Scotsman
Location: Edinburgh

Children to learn traveller songs in 'gypsy' village

Traveller songs will be taught to children in a village which is home to one of Britain's biggest gypsy camps.

Last Updated: 1:05AM GMT 12 Feb 2009

Youngsters in Cottenham, Cambs., will be taught Romany music by professional folk singers during a month of workshops - before performing in a concert in November.

The workshops are being funded by a £8,000 National Lottery 'Awards for All' grant, applied for by Cottenham's Fen Edge Community Association.

Cottenham became synonymous with conflict between travellers and villagers after the nearby Smithy Fen site mushroomed into one of the biggest camps in Britain in 2004.

Local residents have branded the idea for the concert insensitive, and said the money would be better spent elsewhere.

Jacqueline Smith, 49, a member of the settled community at Smithy Fen, who has campaigned against illegal traveller sites, said: "I find it strange there is going to be a concert in the village college when there are hardly any traveller students there at all.

"I am sure there are a lot of people around the village who would have appreciated that money for better causes.

"There are many more deserving people who could use £8,000."

Grandmother-of-four Joy Impey, who works in the village greengrocer's, said: "It is a bit insensitive considering everything that has gone on here.

"But I suppose they have to integrate and if you do not start with the children, where else would you start."

Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive at the TaxPayers' Alliance said the concert was a waste of resources at a time when schools and communities should be prudent with their spending.

He said: "This money would be better spent on teachers and text books.

"At a time when parents are feeling the pinch in credit crunch and the job market is ever more competitive, schools should be focusing on giving children the best possible formal education, not frittering away this funding on unnecessary extras."

Secondary school pupils from Cottenham Village College, and younger children from Cottenham, Waterbeach and Willingham Primary Schools will be taught for four half days each by two musicians from the East Anglian Music Trust.

The songs, which have not yet been selected, will contain heavy influence from Irish and Romany travelling communities who have both settled extensively across the Fens.

Amy Wornald, arts development manager for Fen Edge Community Association, said the folk songs were first brought to the area in 1915 by travellers seeking work in the fields.

She said: "The traveller community has been based in Cottenham for generations when they moved here to work.

"We are really keen to revive the songs that arrived here with travellers so they can be shared by the whole community.

"There has been a lot of tension over the years between the settled and travelling communities and I think it's really important that people share their heritage."

A spokesman for the National Lottery Awards for All fund said the Fen Edge Community Association has been awarded a grant of £8,010.

He said: "Groups can apply for grants between £300 and £10,000.

"If they meet the criteria and it is a good positive project they stand a very good chance of getting funding."

Obligation to educate Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children

What is a school's legal position when it comes to the education of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children, and how do teachers protect their education? Michael Segal discusses

QUESTION:

How should their educational needs be balanced against those of the community at large?

ANSWER:

The case of Hughes v The First Secretary of State and South Bedfordshire District Council [2007] ELR 1, CA looked at this question.

Mr Hughes was head of one of four Traveller families who bought a site for their caravans. The site, in the green belt, was subject to stringent planning restrictions.

Mr Hughes applied for planning permission to use the site as a Traveller site. The planning authority, South Bedfordshire District Council, refused. Mr Hughes appealed, and there was a public inquiry.

To justify a development on land within the green belt, Mr Hughes had to show ‘very special circumstances’ outweighed? ordinary planning considerations and any harm the development would cause.

The education argument
Mr Hughes relied heavily on the fact that six children of the Traveller children attended local schools. He argued that their education would suffer if they left the site, particularly if that meant a return to roadside camping and an itinerant way of life.

The inspector found that the proposed development would harm the green belt by reducing the openness of the landscape, leading to the encroachment of urban features, and adversely affecting the character and appearance of the locality.

But he accepted that there were no alternative sites for the families and that, if planning permission were not given, the children’s education would be severely hampered.

He concluded that there were ‘very special circumstances’, and recommended planning permission.

Appeal
The Secretary of State appealed against that recommendation. He conceded that the children’s education might be disrupted if they were required to leave the site — particularly serious for Traveller children, who have a history of fragmented education.

But, having regard to the local authority’s obligation to make educational provision for children in its area, he was satisfied that they would have appropriate education even without planning permission and an immediately available alternative site.

The educational needs of these children were not out of the ordinary. None had SEN; all were making progress. The harm to their education if they left the site was not a ‘very special circumstance’ sufficient to overcome the harm caused by the development.

High Court
Mr Hughes went to the High Court. The judge allowed the appeal. He held that the Secretary of State had been wrong in finding, without further evidence, that the harm to the children’s education, if they left the site, was not a ‘very special circumstance’ of sufficient weight to overcome the harm caused by the development.

Court of Appeal
The Secretary of State went to the Court of Appeal, which restored his decision, holding that the High Court had been wrong in saying that he should have called further evidence.

The Secretary of State had found that the children’s education would suffer if they were required to leave the site. No further evidence was necessary. He had simply concluded that this harm had not sufficient weight to overcome the harm caused by the development.

Local authority obligation
The Court of Appeal said Mr Hughes’ argument (that a severely disrupted education could not be an appropriate education) would be correct if the local authority’s duty were to ensure that all children within its area received education appropriate to their needs — but this was not the case.

The local authority’s obligation (Education Act 1996, s.13) was not to ensure that all children within its area received an education appropriate to their needs and, but simply ‘to secure that efficient and properly equipped schools of sufficient number and type were available to meet the needs of the population in its area’.

Whether and by what means parents and children used such schools was another matter. The planning judgment rested with the Secretary of State, who had to strike a balance between the community’s interests and those of the children.

The Secretary of State decided in favour of the community, despite the disruption to the children’s education. It was not an easy decision, but it was one that he was entitled to make.

Michael Segal is a district judge in the family division of the High Court

We regret we can not enter into individual correspondence. While it is hoped the answers given here are helpful, they should not be relied on without seeking proper advice as to their application to your own circumstances.

Warwickshire parents remove children from school after gypsy camp is set up nearby

Dec 19 2008 by Christina Savvas, Birmingham Post

Angry parents removed their children from a Warwickshire school because they felt threatened after a group of gypsies set up camp in their village.

The travellers caused uproar when they arrived on the rural site at Darlingscott, near Shipston-on-Stour, next to the home of Olympic minister Tessa Jowell, during the Easter bank holiday.

After a nine-month battle by the local council to evict them, a three-day public enquiry into whether the camp can remain ended at Stratford-upon-Avon Town Hall yesterday.

The travellers’ families, who lodged an appeal against eviction, said they bought 16 plots on the site in October 2007 for £20,000 each. But Stratford-on-Avon District Council refused planning permission for the camp and secured an injunction to stop any more people going onto the site and halt building work.

Coun Christopher Saint said: “There was a lot of local concern when the gypsies arrived. They felt compromised by the sudden appearance and felt it created a negative impact on the community. Several parents removed children and transferred them to other schools.”

Coun Michael Hutchins, of Tredington Parish Council, added: “The junior school has had 11 children from the travelling community with potentially another 21 of school age and three pregnant mothers. If they have to take all these children in one go they would not be able to cope.”

He raised concerns about pollution, flooding and dangerous driving.

Paul Cairnes, barrister for the local authority, said allowing the site to remain would be harmful to the rural area. He said Ernest Wilson, who lodged an appeal against the decision to remove the families resulting in the public inquiry, failed to demonstrate the site would meet a need in the district as identified in the Gypsy Travellers Accommodation Assessment.

The team acting for the gypsies said they had a right to permanent residency.

Barrister Michael Rudd said: “What do you expect them to do? Move them down a mile then they move back a mile. It becomes a never ending problem. There is a clear and undisputed significant regional need for additional pitch provision. The personal need of the appellants is also recognised. The appellants perhaps unusually in such cases have attempted to engage in consultation and were ultimately forced to move onto the appeal site in a last resort.”

During the enquiry members of the gypsy community told of their desire to settle permanently on the site so they could educate their children.

The crime of surviving

By Miguel A. Seman


“When they are accused, they are found guilty of trying, in every possible way, to survive,” wrote John Berger.

Eduardo Galeano is right when he says that if those who first started surviving in the darkness of the caves had been us, man would have barely lasted a little while on earth. Those first inhabitants were capable of lasting, when they were destined to disappear perhaps, because they joined forces to defend themselves and share their food.

Humanity as we know it today does not understand that the salvation of a few at the expense of many is like leaping into thin air. So much that it leaves them and it leaves us without land, water or sky. It pushes us out of the planet, which, like a very old animal, is already tired of us and wants to abandon us.

Hunger forces men to migrate from one continent to another. Some die at sea, other scratching at the doors of a world which steps on their hands so that they cannot even hold on to desert stones. The European Union has just established the right to suspend the rights of the “surplus” population by sending them, for up to eighteen months, to out-of-court confinement camps.

Sixty-nine immigrants have already died trying to reach the Spanish coast this year and forty percent of Spaniards are in favor of the criminalization of the illegal immigration.

In Italy, an important sector of the society is asking the government to clean the territory of the “trash”, while a splendid ancient fascism goes round the streets burning gypsy campsites. In the “Identification and Expulsion Canters”, where a great number of gypsy children die “accidentally”, there is a meticulous registering of minors. When the news was published, the online version of the Critica newspaper displayed many -- too many -- comments in favor of the expulsion of Romany, African, and Muslim people from the peninsula.

On June 20, the Argentine writer Jorge E. Nedich wrote a critical article for La Nacion newspaper on the resurgence of racism in Italy. What was striking, and also alarming, was that from ten messages at least nine attacked the author and the gypsies and justified the persecution.

Argentineans do not separate too much from Europe. The difference, perhaps, lies in the fact that we hide behind some makeup that shows us a little bit better to the world than how we really are. We pass laws on an equality of rights we do not believe in and we support international treaties we do not respect. The poor residents of our country, like in the history of all nations, are the internal foreigners. The rootless, the ones suspended in jails, those without sentence or destiny. The nomads that move from one province to another, from one city to another, only seeking work and food, those whose hands we step on, so that they cannot even hold on to the fences that separate them from the world.

We know nothing or almost nothing about our earliest ancestors. But our presence here, agonizing and irresponsible, is the last refuge of human life, and it testifies that sometime, back when everything lay in the open, they managed to make out what we cannot understand today: that life was a collective matter, that air and water belonged to everyone and that it was necessary to gather together around the fire, get warm, and share food.

Perhaps it was then that the earth and the sky began to love them.

The Spanish language original version of this article can be viewed at the web site www.pelotadetrapo.org.ar.

Thousands in countryside rally against "Gypsy violence"

By: MTI
2008-12-01 09:23

Over 3,000 people joined a torchlight march in Kiskunlachaza, about 45 km south of Budapest, on Friday night, in a protest against violence after a 14-year-old local girl was murdered there a week ago.

The town's mayor Jozsef Repas addressed the gathering, lamenting the decline in public safety in the settlement. Although the murderer or murderers have not been identified, Repas said: "Kiskunlachaza has had enough of Roma violence!" He also said that police were often branded "racist" if they tried to act.

Participants in the march were not all local. Some came from nearby Rackeve, others from more distant towns. A 200-300-person contingent from the right wing paramilitary Hungarian Guard attended as did some members of a motorcycle group known as the Goy Motorcyclists.

There was a heavy police presence and searches of some of the marchers yielded knives and daggers.

County police are continuing their investigation of the murder. They declined to give details of new evidence, saying that if the information were made public it could influence the investigation.

Roma children dying of lead poisoning

By Paul Polansky
Monday, 17 November 2008

This month, Germany's second largest NGO, the "Society for Threatened Peoples" will be sending its Head of Mission for Kosovo, Paul Polansky, to the House of Commons, London and to the EU Headquarters in Brussels in an attempt to save 130 Roma families placed by the United Nations in camps with life-threatening conditions.

Below is a shortened version of the speech delivered by Mr. Polansky in the Brussels hearing.

Two hours from here by plane, in Eastern Europe, are two death camps, mainly for children under the age of six years.

If these children don’t die by the age of six, they will have irreversible brain damage for the rest of their short lives.

These camps have been running for nine years. They were built on the tailing stands of the biggest lead mine in Europe, and next to a toxic slagheap of 100 million tons.

These camps (there used to be four) were built by the UN administration in Kosovo and their implementing partner Action by Churches Working Together. The hurriedly assembled barracks were also built with old lead painted boards.

To date 77 people have died in these camps, mainly due to complications from lead poisoning. More than 50 women have also aborted because of the lead poisoning. One woman and her baby died at childbirth. During her pregnancy she was being treated for lead poisoning. After her death it was discovered by a well-known laboratory in Chicago that two of her surviving nine children has the highest lead levels in medical history.

According to medical experts from Germany and the United States who have visited the camps, every child conceived in these camps will be born with irreversible brain damage.

In November 1999, UNHCR took charge of homeless Gypsies and moved them to four hurriedly built camps on toxic wasteland, the only places the UN said were available. I protested, calling attention to UN officials and especially to the head of UNHCR in Pristina, that these toxic wastelands could be detrimental to the health of these IDPs (internally displaced people). UNHCR assured me that they had signed contracts with the local municipalities that these IDPs would be in these camps for only 45 days. At the end of 45 days, they would either have their homes rebuilt and moved back or would be taken as refugees to another country. Unfortunately, after almost nine years and many deaths, due to lead poisoning, these IDPs are still living on toxic wasteland.

During the summer of 2000, the UN health officer for Mitrovica was asked by the UN administrator Dr. Bernard Kouchner to do a medical survey of Mitrovica because so many UN police and French soldiers were found to have high levels of lead in their blood. In November 2000, the UN health officer Dr. Andrej Andrejew’s report was presented to UNMIK stating that most people living in the city of Mitrovica were suffering from lead poisoning. The report stated that the worst effected were the Gypsies living in the UN camps and recommended that the camps be evacuated and the areas fenced off so that the public could not accidentally wander in.

Instead of closing the Gypsy camps, the UN built a 1.5-kilometer jogging track between two of the camps and the toxic slag heaps. The UN put up signs in four languages calling this jogging track the Alley of Health. The UN also built on land next to 100 million tons of toxic waste a soccer field and a basketball court for the Gypsy children. They were not told that exercise, opening the lungs, would make them more vulnerable to lead poisoning.

Despite repeated appeals to help the Gypsies, especially those living in the three camps in the area of north Mitrovica, the UN did just the opposite. All food aid was suspended in 2002 saying it was time for the Gypsies to find their own supplies. In the Zitkovac camp the running water was cut off for up to six months at a time because the camp administer, Churches Working Together, felt the Gypsies were using too much water. In the end, the Zitkovac Gypsies had to walk four kilometers twice a day to get their drinking water. In all three camps, most of the Gypsies had to go through the local garbage cans to find their food.

In the summer of 2004, WHO made a special investigation of lead poisoning in the three camps after Jenita Mehmeti, a four-year-old girl, died of lead poisoning. She was not the first. Up to that point 28 people (mainly children and young adults) had died in the three camps, but Jenita was the first one to be treated for lead poisoning before she died. New blood samples taken by WHO showed that many children, the most vulnerable to lead poisoning, had lead levels higher than the WHO analyzer could register.

The standard procedure for medical treatment of lead poisoning requires immediate evacuation from the source of poisoning and hospitalization if lead levels are above 40 μg/dL. Irreversible brain damage usually begins at 10 μg/dL especially in children under the age of six whose immune systems have yet to develop. Many of the lead levels of the Gypsy children in these three camps were over 65 μg/dL, the highest level the WHO machine could read. WHO staff suspected that some children (because of their symptoms) had lead levels in the 80s and 90s. As it turned out, two children had a lead level of 120 μg/dL, the highest in medical history.

In November 2004, WHO presented their health report on the Gypsy camps to UNMIK, recommending immediate evacuation. Although there were precedents for the UN evacuating thousands of Albanians and Serbians in Kosovo when they faced life-threatening events, these Gypsies were not evacuated. The only measure that the UN took was to being bi-monthly meetings with UN agencies and other NGOs to study the problem. Although many NGOs including the International Committee for the Red Cross petitioned the UN to immediately evacuate these “death camps” within 24 hours, no action was taken by the UN until 2006.

In January 2006 the UN in Kosovo closed one of the Gypsy camps and moved 35 families to a new location, about 50 meters from their old camp. The new camp was called Osterode. It was formerly a French army NATO base in north Mitrovica but had been abandoned after many soldiers were found to have lead poisoning. In fact, all French soldiers serving there were told by French military doctors not to father a child for nine months after leaving the camp because of the high lead levels in their blood.

Nevertheless, the UN in their wisdom spent more than 500,000 euros (donated by the German government) to refurbish this camp. Feeling that most of the lead poisoning came from the ground, the UN cemented over much of the area and then obtained a certificate from CDC, the Center for Disease Control, a US funded agency, that the camp was “lead safe.” Although all these camps were built on the tailing stands of the Trepca lead mines, most of the lead pollution comes through the air from the 100 million tons of toxic slag heaps in front of the camps.

In September 2006, at his first press conference as head of the UN in Kosovo, Herr Joachim Ruecker proudly announced that the UN was doing something to help these Gypsies dying of lead poisoning. In addition to moving them from their camps to Osterode, which he declared was not lead safe but “lead safer” the UN would begin to treat lead poisoning with a better diet. For the first time in four years food aid would now be given to the Gypsies so that they would no longer have to go through the local garbage cans. The US Office in Pristina donated $1,000,000 for this “better diet.”

It is well known to medical doctors that a proper diet can lower lead leads by about 20%, but only if the affected person is first removed from the source of poisoning. In the case of these infected Gypsies, reducing their lead levels by 20% would still leave them with life-threatening levels. For the first time in four years, the UN also provided a daily medical staff to look after the health of these Gypsies. Unfortunately, lead poisoning can only be treated once the patient is removed from the source of lead poisoning. In any event, the medical staff later resigned because they had not been paid for months.

By spring 2006 two of the Gypsy camps (Zitkovac and Kablare) had been closed with more than 100 families now living in Osterode. After three months, blood samples were taken and according to UNMIK the health of the Gypsies was improving, thanks to their new diet, and lead levels were falling. However, WHO and UNMIK refused to share copies of these blood results with the public or even with the Gypsy families themselves. Later I was given copies of the tests by a disgruntled WHO staffer who was tired of the cover up. The test results showed that the lead levels had not only risen, but that Osterode, the lead free camp now had higher lead levels than the nine-year-old Cesmin Lug camp.

In 2006 the UN announced that the only solution for the Gypsies living on or near the toxic wastelands was to rebuild their homes in their old neighborhood and move them back. Thus the UN enlisted several international donors to rebuild some of the Gypsy homes and several apartment blocks with the promise to move the lead-infected Gypsies back to their old neighborhood. Unfortunately, as soon as these homes and apartments were finished in the summer and fall of 2006, the UN did not give all the apartments to the Gypsies living on toxic wasteland, but mainly to Kosovo Gypsy refugees the UN wanted to bring back from Serbia and Montenegro to show that their return policy of refugees was working.

In April 2007 all food and medical aid at Osterode was stopped because the UN said it was running out of money. Once again the Gypsies were forced to find their only food by going through the local garbage cans. But worst of all was yet to come.

Because many children at Osterode and in the adjoining camp of Cesmin Lug were showing common signs of lead poisoning (lead on their teeth, daily vomiting, and memory loss), the camp leaders insisted on new blood test in April 2008. Random blood tests of 105 children showed staggering results. For many of the children living in the UN “lead safer” camp of Osterode, their lead levels had doubled since moving into the former French base.

Because the UN and UNHCHR refuse to help these citizens of Kosovo, I have appealed directly to the Minister of Health for the newly declared country of Kosovo. Dr. Alush Gashi is not only a medical doctor but also a personal friend of mine for several years. He once lived and worked in San Francisco. I not only appealed to him by email, but also visited him in his office, begging him to help his minority citizens. He understands the problem. He understands the situation. As a medical doctor he knows that these Gypsies need to be evacuated immediately. In a recently filmed interview with Dr. Gashi, he acknowledged that these Gypsies should be evacuated immediately, that they would be better off in prison than in the death camps. He said that USAID was funding a project with Mercy Corps to save these people.

It didn’t take me long to get a copy of the USAID/Mercy Corp project. It called for the resettlement of 50 of the 120 families living in the camps over the next 2.5 years. There was no immediate medical solution for anyone living in the camps. Evacuation was not mentioned. Later I found out that the author of the project has never even visited the camps. Yet USAID is handing over $2.4 million, for this cosmetic solution.

Since 2005 we have tried to force the UN to help these Gypsies. An American lawyer, Dianne Post, has tried to sue the UN on behalf of several hundred Gypsies living in these camps. Her lawsuit against the UN at the court of Human Rights in Strasbourg was turned down because the court declared that only a country, not an organization, could be sued. Although the UN was the sole administrator of Kosovo, the court decided that UN could not be sued.

The UN does have a policy of compensation for such problems. But UN lawyers for three years have refused to cooperate in seeking compensation for these Gypsies or resolving their health problems. The UN does not deny responsibility but refuses to comply with its own rules and standards.

In 2005 the Society for Threatened Peoples, the largest NGO in Germany after the Red Cross, brought to Kosovo the leading German expert on toxic poisoning, Dr. Klaus Runow. Although the UN tried to bar him from the camps, he was able to take about 60 hair samples from the Gypsy children. He sent the hair samples to a well-known laboratory in Chicago. The results showed that not only did many of the children have the highest lead levels in medical history, but that all had toxic poisoning from 36 other heavy metals as well. In trying to defend themselves, UN personnel have often claimed that the Gypsies got their lead poisoning from smelting car batteries. However, Dr. Runow pointed out that none of these other toxic metals are found in car batteries.

Dr. Rohko Kim, a Harvard trained medical doctor employed by WHO in Bonn, Germany, has been advising the UN on the lead poisoning in their camps in Kosovo. Although he is under orders not to give interviews or information about the Gypsy camps, I got him to speak to me. I asked him if the lead poisoning was due to the Gypsies smelting car batteries. He said no. He said most of the lead poisoning came from the toxic dust of the slagheap and from the fact that the camps were built on the tailing stands of the mines. He said that every child conceived in the camps would have irreversible brain damage. He said that we had already lost an entire generation of Gypsy children to lead poisoning. In a speech delivered in 2005 to WHO, UNMIK and the Kosovo Ministry of Health, Dr. Kim said: "The present situation in the Roma community who are now living in the camps is extremely serious. I have personally researched lead poisoning since 1991, but I have never seen in the literature a population with such a high level of lead in their blood. I believe that the lead poisoning in north Mitrovica is unique, which has never been known before in history. This is one of the biggest catastrophes connected with lead in the world and in history."

To date 77 Gypsies have died in the UN camps. Even more miscarriages have occurred. The UN has never investigated one death in the camps or ever made an autopsy. However, from the symptoms described by relatives and neighbors, doctors consulted believe that lead poisoning contributed to most of the deaths and miscarriages.

A few months ago another Gypsy baby died in Osterode. It was one month old and had been born with a large head, swollen belly and miniature legs. It woke at six in the morning, vomiting, and died twenty minutes later in hospital.

Lead poisoning is a hideous and painful death for children. Four-year-old Jenita Mehmeti was attending the camp kindergarten when her teacher noticed she was losing her memory and finding it hard to walk. Jenita was sent back to her barracks where for the next three months she vomited several times a day, before becoming paralyzed and dying.

There are precedents in Kosovo for saving lives, but not 500 Gypsy lives. Thus this appeal to you as MEPs. In Europe today we have a death camp for children. Please do something about it.

Gypsy children of Romanian origin earn over 23 million euro annually

de Alina Comanciu HotNews.ro
Luni, 10 noiembrie 2008, 11:15

At least 200 Gypsy children from Romania, victims of the human trafficking dealers "earn" in Great Britain over 19 million pounds (some 23 million euro) from pickpocketing and fraud each year, The Sunday Times reads in its electronic edition, quoted by Romanian news television Realitatea TV.

The children, aged 8 on average were illegally brought to Britain with the consent of their parents. The parents receive an employment fee from the dealers. The activities of this network were revealed to the British Parliamentarians by Europol director Max Peter Ratzel.

All these children were brought to UK to fraud the kingdom's social security system, Ratzel wrote in a letter sent last month to the House of Commons Interior Committee. He added that the police suspects that the money are sent back in Romania.

House of Commons member James Clappison declared that this reality proved the threats coming from the East European countries. Moreover, he added that Brits should carefully consider the consequences of their presence.

After a series of investigations, the police searched some 17 houses in Slough, Berkshire and arrested 25 people. 10 children, aged 10 or less were found and handed over to the social security services.

Roma student offers beacon of hope

By Barnaby Phillips, Europe correspondent

A few months ago, I travelled to Naples, in Italy, to report on hostility against the Roma, or Gypsy, people.

Neapolitans blamed the Roma for a crimewave, and burnt down one of their camps.

The story was posted on You Tube by Al Jazeera:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MlMFRamBVsk

Here is a sample of some of the comments posted in response; "gypsies are just parasites", "gypsies cannot adapt to a modern way of living and will never be welcome", "only a dead gypsy is a good gypsy", and so on.

Many comments are not printable, but you get the drift.

Now, it iss true that the anonymity of the internet has a depressing tendency to encourage people to publish offensive views.

But, reporting for Al Jazeera from Europe, I've been surprised by the widespread and deep-rooted prejudice against the Roma.

In Greece, and elsewhere, I'm often taken aback by remarks from otherwise broadminded people.

Sometimes it seems that the one form of racism that is still socially acceptable is that against the Roma.

(MORE)

Vatican Calls for Better Education for Gypsies

Also Decries Their Forced Sterilizations

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 2, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The Vatican is urging better treatment for Gypsies, particularly the end to "special schools" for the ethnic group and the forced sterilization of their women.

These are two of the exhortations found in the final document of 6th World Congress for the Pastoral Care of Gypsies. The conference was held Sept. 1-4 in Freising, Germany. The document was released today by the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers, which cosponsored the event with the German bishops' conference.

One hundred and fifty delegates participated in the conference, which was focused on "Gypsy Youth in the Church and Society."

The final document proposes that one of the key elements in ministry to Gypsies is the theme of education.

"Education is the fundamental process for the fulfillment of personal potential, and it is necessary for integration in society," a statement from the pontifical council affirmed. "It is necessary to prohibit the registration of Gypsies in 'special schools,' which generates humiliation.

"Education is a condition for participation in political, social and economic life, based on a position of equality with the others. It should, therefore, motivate rightly critical reflection and responsibility, which in turn, are needed to build up an ever more human society, based on the principles of justice, equality and fraternity."

Education for a career was one of the principal concerns expressed at the conference, given that "youth should overcome walls, created also because of weaknesses in the educational system, which are an obstacle to their access to the world of work."

Family life

The conference also decried "forced sterilizations and those campaigns that tend to destabilize the concept of family among the Gypsies."

"The education of women must be guaranteed among fundamental rights," the statement affirmed, "along with intercultural dialogue, the participation of the youth in democratic citizenship, social cohesion and the development of youth policies."

The document proposed that "it would be useful to ask humanitarian organizations and Caritas for the distribution of microcredits […] allotted to those families and communities that show greatest capacity to use them in favor of their ethnic group."

The conference participants called for support from the Church for gypsies, though it recognized the inherent difficulties in ministering to the group.

In ministry to Gypsies, the text affirmed, "ecclesial movements and the new communities that the Holy Spirit draws forth in the Church could carry out an important role."

"Excluded, confined to the margins of humanity, humiliated, the Gypsies need a living Church, a Church-communion, capable of forming and helping them to overcome difficulties that great policies do not manage to overcome," the document said. Nevertheless, "the act of presenting oneself lovingly and with the desire to proclaim the good news is not sufficient to create a trusting relationship among Gypsies […] given the weight of history and all of the wrongs they have suffered.

"The Gypsy population, therefore, is suspicious of the initiatives of all those who try to enter into their world. It is possible to rise above this initial attitude only with concrete gestures of solidarity, with life in common and with projects […] that favor the participation and acceptance of Gypsy youth."

© Innovative Media, Inc.

Travellers’ children face bias

Wednesday, 1 October 2008

As a result of a recent petition from Roma in Romania, the Strazburg Court concluded that a separate education system was ultimately detrimental to the wellbeing of its Gypsy population.

That country is retraining all teachers to disabuse them of perceptions that the poor in the community are of an inferior race. The Equality Commission here was ignorant of this ruling, which essentially makes it illegal to pursue separate education.

Besides the European Ruling, the Ireland Act gave a privileged position in law to Travellers.

There would also appear to have been recent incidents where Traveller children were rejected by the ‘Irish' schools, a situation which is totally illegal.

It is obvious that the massive funding which is directed at these schools, giving a comfortable existence to well paid teachers, whose pupils are not tested, could be more appropriately directed into the general education system.

Grappling with a Roma identity

By Steve Bradshaw
Executive Producer, Life on the Edge

It was just a passing remark, the first time I heard Arpad Bogdan talk about the Roma father who had left him in an orphanage, and wonder if he should try to find him.

We were drinking late at night in a semi-derelict house in a Budapest side street. We had skipped over bicycles and rubbish to make our way inside. I should say this was not a doss house but a trendy Urban Minimalism club.

"He doesn't have to tell you this you know," whispered our mutual friend, director Antonia Meszaros. And it was then that I realised how conflicted Arpad is - how much of a dilemma his Roma inheritance has created.

Arpad is a much-garlanded young film director, whose feature film Happy New Life has won many awards. It is about a young Roma man's unbearable childhood in an orphanage. In the end, he can't hack it - unlike Arpad who emerged from his own orphanage into the University of Pecs and a promising film career.

"My film," Arpad says, "is about the dilemmas of someone who realises that in order to face the future, he must come to terms with his past - and that's something that I still have to do in my own life."

Arpad was one of thousands of Roma - or gypsy - children who were taken into orphanages during Hungary's Communist years. The truth is cloudy here, but it seems that in some cases their parents wanted this, in many they didn't.

(MORE)

Pontecorvo wows Venice with Romanian gypsy film

By Peter Popham in Rome
Friday, 29 August 2008

In 1966, the year he was born, Marco Pontecorvo's father Gillo won the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion with one of the greatest postwar Italian films, The Battle of Algiers. Forty-two years on, the soft-spoken cinematographer stood with a look of stunned bemusement on his face as the Venice audience gave him a standing ovation and 12 minutes of applause for his first film as director.

He wasn't to know it when he conceived the project seven years ago, but Parada, which opens in Italian cinemas in September, is cruelly relevant to Italy's most pressing national debate. For more than a year the country has been obsessed with what to do about the surge of impoverished immigrants from Romania.

Pontecorvo's debut offering - a feature film not a documentary - is about these people, and the true story of how a Franco-Algerian clown responded to them after a chance meeting in Bucharest. That true story belongs to Miloud Oukili, who flew to Romania in 1992 intending to stay for just a couple of months, but ended up staying for 13 years.

In Bucharest he discovered the “boskettari”: the thousands of children who were the tragic victims of Ceausescu's rule, and of the chaos that followed its dissolution: refugees from families too poor or violent to stay with or from abusive orphanages, who lived like rats in the city's substrata, in tunnels alongside the mains hot water pipes, sleeping on putrid mattresses in cardboard boxes, feared and spurned by their society. They stayed alive by petty theft, drug-dealing and prostitution. Many, even the tiny ones, had become hooked on glue-sniffing.

Miloud was transfixed by their plight, unable to tear himself away. He set about doing something for the boskettari, using his circus skills, and with the help of magic and clowning he slowly overcame their distrust. The result, years later, was Parada, a professional circus troupe made up of former boskettari which travels the world. More than 1,000 children have succeeded in graduating from the sewers with his help.

“It was a story that got to me,” Pontecorvo says, “and when a story gets to you, that gives you the energy to meet the challenges of turning it into a film. It wasn't easy: the fact that we started in 2001 and completed the film in 2007 gives you an idea of the problems we faced.”

Pontecorvo dedicated the film to his father, who died two years ago. “His advice to me while I was making the film was to be careful because it was a difficult film. He liked it a lot, he said, but it was very difficult.” The risk was of descending into pathos and sentimentality, of “polluting” the story as Pontecorvo puts it. The consensus is that he has pulled it off.

“It's a story of love and friendship,” he says. “Because Oukili himself came - not from the sewers but from a similar background. It was a dream he realised through love and respect. Respect was one of the things he taught them, but also perhaps learned from them. Because remember, he himself was only 20 when he arrived, only a little older than the children. They grew up together.”

The challenge of coaxing these children, condemned by their own society as irredeemable, to learn to respect themselves and to stand tall contrasts harshly with what has happened in Italy over the past months, where left and right have competed to propose ever harsher solutions to the “security problem” with the “Rom” pose. Among the most controversial proposals is that of the Berlusconi government to fingerprint all Roma in the country, children included.

“I find this an extremely shocking proposal,” commented Jalil Lespert, the actor who plays Oukili, “one which belongs to the distant past. The fact that people are talking about such things again is a dangerous sign for Europe.”

“The thousand children who have been saved are nothing compared to the thousands still living on the streets who know nothing of joy or hope,” Miloud told the festival audience at Venice. “You don't have to go to Bucharest,” Pontecorvo pointed out. “It's enough to go to the suburbs of Paris or any other great metropolis to find children whose childhood has been denied.”

Gypsies in Dharmapuri get residential school

Tuesday August 26 2008 01:48 IST
M Sankararamanujam ENS

DHARMAPURI: The Dharmapuri district administration and the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) have launched an exclusive school for children coming from gypsy families in Pachinampatti in Harur taluk.

An NGO—Gypsies’ Development Society— had started its service for the welfare of the gypsy community in Pachinampatti. According director S Maheswaran, more than 75 gypsy families were living in Pachinampatti, selling plastic products and birds to earn a living. So the NGO organised them and formed the society.

In Dharmapuri the gypsy community was spread in several places. As it was a model village in Panchanampatti where children were given schooling in residential school, Dharmapuri district administration and SSA administration also considered the plea and started the residential school exclusively for gypsy students, he added.

Maheswaran and two teachers were teaching them. The Chief Educational Officer (SSA) S Suganya told Express that to promote the educational status they enrolled the dropouts. The building and other infrastructure were being launched by the NGO and the SSA would support by providing teachers and teaching aids. The children would later be admitted to regular Government schools.

This was the first attempt to launch residential schools for gypsies and there are plans to launch more schools in identified hill areas.

The gypsy families of Madhu, Anchammal, Sridevi and Guna appealed to the district administration to provide community certificate and form a society for the welfare of the community. The also submitted their memorandum zto the Collector.

'Why do the Italians hate us?'

Dan McDougall
The Observer, Sunday August 17 2008

It is an image that shocked the world: two young Gypsy children lie dead for three hours on an Italian beach while, feet away, a carefree couple enjoy a leisurely picnic. Dan McDougall travels to the Roma camps of Naples to meet the dead girls' mother and finds fear and bitterness - and a country in danger of forgetting its far-Right past.

(MORE)

Poland ministry to close Gypsy-only classes

By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA – Aug 1, 2008

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland's Education Minister plans to shut down Gypsy-only school classes following complaints they are discriminatory.

"There will absolutely be no more forming of separate classes for Roma children," Katarzyna Hall told radio Tok FM on Friday. "We must put an end to this."

In 2004, the Council of Europe in 2004 appealed to Poland and other nations with Roma, or Gypsy, minorities to put an end to segregated classes.

(MORE)

Gypsy film gets European airing

Students from Monkton School have been showing off their film-making talents on a recent trip to the European Parliament in Brussels.

Hosted by Plaid MEP Jill Evans, the visit was made possible by the Priory Project, which provides education and support for secondary school-aged gypsy children.

"It is refreshing to see young people from Wales taking the lead with a groundbreaking project like this.”

Jill Evans MEPAn informative DVD in which the young people share their views and experiences, was made with support from the Welsh Assembly Government and Save the Children, which also helped fund the visit to Brussels.

The party was led by project leader Bev Stephens and headteacher William Rees. Children heard from Belgian MEP, Els de Groen; Caroline Mooney of the Welsh Assembly and Livia Jaroka, the first Romany gypsy MEP to be elected.

Presentations were made by Caroline Mooney, of the Assembly’s social inclusion department, and Ant Edwards, of Save The Children. Priory Project pupil, Kirby Jones, also spoke to the MEPs about the work being done in Pembrokeshire.

Jill Evans MEP said: “I learned a lot from meeting these young people. They were impressive advocates for the gypsy traveller community and presented first hand evidence of their experiences and the challenges they face.

“The European Union now has a Roma Inclusion Strategy, but there is still a lot of discrimination.

“These young people were very interested in the work of the European Parliament. It is refreshing to see young people from Wales taking the lead with a groundbreaking project like this.”

She added: "I have asked for a copy of the DVD and will show it to my colleagues. This project has my wholehearted support.”

Nomadic Beauty

A new exhibition shows a life-long fascination with gypsies.

By Yelena Shuster
Published: July 25, 2008

Behind a stark background of a dilapidated shack and bare trees stands a dark-skinned gypsy in a white wedding dress. Her gaze is defiant as one hand holds up the lace dress and the other hand rests boldly on her hips.

This contrast between the lovely and the wretched has immortalized photographer Lyalya Kuznetsova since 1979, when she first began capturing intimate moments in black and white all over Eurasia.

Since then, her documentary style has won her exhibitions and medals all over Europe and the United States. The current "Gypsies" exhibition at the Pobeda Gallery has collected 47 of her photographs over a 19-year period in order to introduce these classics to younger generations.

"Non-conformist Soviet photographers like Lyalya fell in a temporary pothole because of what was going on in the country at the time," said curator Irina Meglinskaya. "They are all legends, of course, but they don't exist in the mainstream. It was very important for me to connect this generation with the past one."

Known for their exotic dress and nomadic habits, gypsies have always been considered second-class citizens in Russian culture. Stereotypes include their practice of black magic and their penchant for pick-pocketing and stealing children.

Kuznetsova depicts their life on the outskirts of society with an intimacy rarely achieved by the presence of a camera. Her decision to capture the gypsy way of life was a personal one.

The year was 1977 and Kuznetsova's husband passed away. She quit her job as an aviation engineer and picked up a camera. Without any technical training, the Kazakhstan native dug into her childhood and began capturing the bright necklaces and skirt rustles of the gypsies around Oral, with whom she grew up.

"When things are awful, we reach for the roots that previously gave us strength. Photography became my way of expressing my sorrow," she said.

Though her mother warned her that gypsies kidnap children who misbehave, Kuznetsova was entranced by the gypsies who came to buy milk from her aunt's cow in a nearby village. Kuznetsova remembers watching the gypsies and their bright bonfires from atop the roof of her aunt's house.

"In my childhood, gypsies were always surrounded by this mystery. It was some kind of fairytale," Kuznetsova said. "With them was connected the smell of sagebrush, the smell of the steppe and the sound of bitter gypsy songs."

Kuznetsova began her photography career with a five-year-old daughter in her arms, and a major motif of the exhibit is a mother's love for her child. Whether depicting an elderly gypsy from Oral sitting on a pile of bedding behind a carriage with two girls by her side or a Turkmen grandmother snuggling with a child concealed in her veil, Kuznetsova portrays the resilience of these women without bordering on kitsch.

Kuznetsova considers all of her photography self-portraits. Though she is already a grandmother, her spirit is in that gypsy girl with the wedding dress, her gaze defiant amidst the damage that surrounds her.

For her next project, Kuznetsova plans to return to her beloved subject and photograph gypsies in the 21st century in Moscow's surrounding regions. Though she has been photographing gypsies for almost two decades, Kuznetsova has no idea what to expect.

"I cannot predict what happens when I click the camera," Kuznetsova said. "When I photograph, I don't think about the spectator. In fact, I don't think at all. I search for the photos where I feel a snag in my heart."

"Gypsies" (Tsygane) runs to Aug. 31 at Pobeda Gallery in Winzavod Center of Contemporary Arts, located at 1 4th Syromyatnichesky Pereulok, Bldg. 6. Metro Kurskaya. Tel. 917-4646.

Italian media appalled by Neapolitan tragedy

(CNN) -- The Archbishop of Naples barely disguised his disgust: "Indifference is not an emotion for human beings." Cardinal Crecenzio Seppe wrote in his parish Web site blog Sunday that "to turn the other way or to mind your own business can sometimes be more devastating than the events that occur."

On a windy Saturday afternoon a group of Roma girls were selling trinkets on a beach outside of Naples. Sometime during lunch time, the girls set down their wares and ventured into a rough sea. Two of the Roma, cousins Violetta and Cristina, aged 12 and 13, according to Cardinal Sepe, struggled to stay afloat amid a strong rip tide.

Emergency services responded 10 minutes after a distress call was made from the beach and, according to local press accounts, two lifeguards attended the girls upon hearing their screams. But they were too late. Cristina and Violetta drowned.

Their bodies were pulled from the sea, covered with towels, feet exposed. Witnesses say they lay on the beach for hours -- and so did many of the sunbathers who allegedly watched the drowning and, according to some press accounts, did little but stare and carry on with their Saturday afternoon.

"Two Gypsy [Roma] girls drown in the midst of the indifference of bathers," shouted the headline of La Repubblica. "Children drown, their bodies amidst the bathers," read Corriere della Sera's first page. "Few left the beach or abandoned their sunbathing."

The coffins of the girls, carried on the shoulders of police, exited the beach "between bathers stretched out in the sun," it reported. It also pointed out that the drowning of an Italian man off the coast of northern Italy in 1997, prompted a similar reaction.

Pictures of bathers chatting on cellphones and taking in the rays just meters from the lifeless bodies were posted on dailies across Italy on Sunday. The photographer told CNN the atmosphere among the sunbathers was indeed indifferent -- but "what were they supposed to do?" he asked.

The girls were from one of the many Roma camps in Naples, part of a population of nearly 150,000 across Italy mainly in and around Naples, Rome and Milan. The group have long been considered a nuisance by many in Italy and frequently blamed for criminal activity.

In a recent government survey, nearly a quarter of Italians said they believed the Roma were thieves. More than 90 percent said the believed they exploit their children.

Under a new, controversial anti-crime measure, every Roma, including their children will be registered in a census and either photographed or fingerprinted -- a move condemned by the European parliament, the U.N., the Catholic Church and civil liberties groups as racial profiling.

The Berlusconi government says the initiative will help keep track of the group and better protect the rights of its children who under Italian law are entitled to free health care and education if they are documented.

Authorities who attended to the Roma girls at the beach last weekend said they did not have any identification and were not on any local records. Police left the girls' bodies on the beach until they had located their families.

Italian plan to fingerprint Roma gypsy children in bid to end begging sparks uproar

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 10:57 PM on 26th June 2008

Italy has announced controversial plans to fingerprint thousands of Roma gipsy children in a bid to clamp down on street begging.

Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said mass fingerprinting by police would allow them to identify those caught begging instead of going to school.

Their parents would then be questioned and risk losing custody of them.

Mr Maroni said this would protect the children by deterring families who sent them out to accost passers-by. But the scheme, which will also involve fingerprinting all adult Roma, was immediately criticised as unacceptable discrimination and 'ethnic screening'.

In recent months, there has been an angry backlash against Roma in Italy, with petrol bombs thrown at a camp in Naples and sporadic vigilante attacks.

Many Italians blame gipsies for the rising crime rate and Silvio Berlusconi's new government has launched a tough crackdown on crime and immigration.

There are estimated to be around 160,000 Roma gipsies in Italy, often living in appalling conditions in makeshift camps with little basic sanitation.

Officials plan to bulldoze all illegal camps and a recent opinion poll found that 68 per cent of Italians want all gipsies expelled.

Vincenzo Spadafora, of the UN children's organisation Unicef, said of the fingerprints plan: 'If this is being brought in to protect the rights of Roma children, Italian children should also be fingerprinted to protect them as well.

'Most importantly, children should not be treated as adults.' Opposition MP Rosa Bindi said: 'The minister may deny it's ethnic screening, but it is frankly unacceptable.'

Jewish groups also attacked the plan. Amos Luzzarto, a former leader of Italy's Jewish community, said: 'There is a latent form of racism which manifests itself in cycles in Italian culture.

'I remember as a child being stamped and tagged as a Jew and as such could not be trusted.

'I think Italy is forgetting its past here. The racism of this initiative is evident and unacceptable. This is not a new form of fascism - this is racism.'

Gypsy boys starve to death in Greek elevator

Star News Services
Published: Saturday, June 14, 2008

SALONIKA, Greece - Two gypsy boys who went missing three weeks ago in northern Greece were found dead in a blocked elevator, where they apparently starved to death, officials said on Friday.

The brothers, aged eight and six, were found naked inside an elevator cabin stuck between floors. An autopsy indicated that they died from lack of food and water, police and a coroner said.

Investigators found no signs of external injuries on their bodies and toxicology results were expected in 10 days.

The two boys were identified as Ahmet and Aihan Ceribashi, for whom a nationwide alert had been raised in late May after they vanished from a schoolyard in the city of Orestiada.

The four-storey building where they were found had been recently completed but not fully inhabited.

The authorities feared the boys might have ended up with people traffickers after their mother claimed they were given up for adoption for the sum of 20,000 euros ($31,000).

Jobs lost at pioneering gypsy project

Eleven jobs have been lost at a flagship education service for Pembrokeshire gypsies and travellers, as a result of European funding delays.

Additional funding for the Priory Learning Centre at Monkton Priory Community Primary School came to an end in October. It was hoped a new fund would begin immediately to allow the project to continue as normal, but there is still no sign of the money.

The additional funding allowed the centre to expand its service and provide learning support workers for 14 schools in the area, helping to meet specific educational needs of more than 200 gypsy children.

However, as the project has been left waiting for the money to fund the scheme, 11 outreach staff for the Priory Project - mostly LSA workers - have been made redundant.

Ten of the redundancies have now been taken as regular LSA workers independently under schools' budgets.

Monkton Priory headteacher William Rees said: "The gypsy learning centre is used as an example for similar projects all over Wales. It supports gypsy children at primary level and as they move on to secondary education.

"The Department of Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills and, in particular, the additional needs and inclusion division have been hugely supportive of our project, but we are currently operating on half our normal funding and there is a desperate need to implement European funding as soon as possible."

The project receives its core funding from the Welsh Assembly, but received match funding two-and-a-half years ago under Equals - a budget for specified ethnic minority education, administered by the Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO).

When the funding ended last October, it was hoped there would be a smooth transition to the new Convergence fund, but the project has not yet received the additional funds.

Shadow finance minister and south Pembrokeshire AM Angela Burns says she has raised the subject eight or nine times at the Assembly.

"Several organisations, including The Priory Project and The Sunderland Trust are suffering as a result of this gap in funding," she told the Western Telegraph.

"I've now been reassured that the various projects will be notified about what money will be available to the and when by the end of May or early June."

A spokesman for the Welsh Assembly said: "WEFO awaits further information from Pembrokeshire County Council before continuing its assessment of the project proposal for gypsy and traveller pupils."

4:17pm Saturday 19th April 2008

Travellers on different roads

Jackie Cosh
Published: 18 April 2008

Roving workshops are showing schoolchildren there are more similarities than differences between them and Gypsy Travellers.

Gathered in a circle around an open box, one by one the children pull out an object: a horse, a caravan, a power tool. Then the class discussion begins. What relevance could these objects have?

The object box is one of the tools used by a group of Gypsy Traveller children who, with the help of Save the Children, are running workshops in Scottish schools in order to raise awareness of their culture and, ultimately, reduce discrimination and bullying.

The idea came about following a peer research project conducted by Save the Children. Of the young Gypsy Travellers who took part, 91 per cent reported they had experienced discrimination. It was clear that they wanted to try and change this, to educate other children and to challenge these prejudices.

And so began a programme which started with a series of displays in museums and has seen the children visit the European Parliament, where they met MEPs and demonstrated their work.

A two-year project entitled “Who We Are” proved popular and resulted in a follow-up, “Don’t Judge Us”, which is being funded by the Scottish Government’s Race Equality Integration and Community Support Fund.

Karen Carrick, Save the Children’s Travellers’ development officer, co-ordinates the scheme. “We wanted to use the material from our research to work against this discrimination,” she says. “The aim of the workshops is to illustrate there are more similarities than differences, and to counter stereotypes.”

The children at Dysart Primary in Kirkcaldy, Fife, are younger than those the group normally addresses, but this is not a problem. “What we do is flexible,” Miss Carrick says. “The sessions can be adapted to suit the age group.”

As well as the object box, photographs are used to open up discussions. The children talk about what they think the pictures mean. Then they learn what the relevance is to Gypsy Traveller life.

Other resources which have been developed for the workshops include DVDs showing “A day in the life of…”, a poster, leaflets, a booklet, games and quizzes.

The 45-minute sessions often begin by showing a short film clip about everyday life as a Gypsy Traveller. This opens up discussions on the similarities and differences. “We watch TV too,” says one child. “You live in a caravan instead of a house,” says another. The idea that they may not be very different is sown in the children’s minds.

The group then moves on to the fun part, with arts and crafts being used. This may involve making bow tents with pipe cleaners and pieces of cloth. Younger children may make paper flowers, a traditional Gypsy Traveller task.

“I make paper flowers and go round the doors selling them,” says Shantelle, “and my granny still makes wooden flowers.”

The informality encourages the schoolchildren to relate to the young Gypsy Travellers leading the sessions and ask whatever they like. The group is past being surprised at the questions they are asked.

Ultimately, the project’s success is measured by how much attitudes change.
Before the workshop, the schoolchildren are asked to fill in knowledge cards and give three words they associate with Gypsy Travellers. These are often far from complimentary, such as “thieves”, “dirty” and “earrings”. Afterwards, they fill in knowledge cards again. The words are usually more positive: “normal” and “like us”.

“By the end of the sessions, 95 per cent of children have changed how they think of Gypsy Travellers,” says Miss Carrick.

Karen Carrick, Save the Children, T 0131 527 8200

Bulgaria's childrens homes creak under weight of social ills

SOFIA (AFP) — Faced with the urgent problem of some 8,000 abandoned children, Bulgaria is desperately trying to modernise its network of dilapidated orphanages amid revelations of paedophilia and cruelty.

Deliberately built in isolated settings by the previous communist regime, its 144 state "homes for children deprived of parental care" have an odd formal purpose, given orphans account for just two percent of their population.

Social affairs minister Emilia Maslarova explains that many are readily given up by their parents, but that these parents refuse to sign away parental rights which prevents the children from entering adoption programmes.

The depth of the sector's problems hit home earlier this month when an adolescent girl in an orphanage in the western town of Tran was killed, with another boy and girl injured by a man who subsequently committed suicide.

The killer, a 67-year-old paedophile with a rape conviction already on his record, apparently succumbed to jealous rage over special attention paid to the injured gypsy girl by a member of the orphanage's staff.

Meanwhile, in northwestern Bulgaria, three young girls at an orphanage in Berkovitsa told New Television station that three men paid them "to undress" and "to play doctors."

The centre's director acknowledged that "paedophiles have shown interest in the children."

At Plovdiv, in the south, several children were able to eat rat poison held within their dormitories, which they thought was candy.

And in Sofia, another young girl was injured when she fell from a window while trying to hang herself with an improvised cord made out of bed sheets.

According to the management of one orphanage, these incidents can be explained due to poor supervision as it is difficult to attract qualified staff with salaries of 170 euros (265 dollars) per month.

Prosecutors have launched investigations into the conditions at state orphanages in the country of 7.7 million inhabitants, still struggling to cope with the transition from a communist to a capitalist economy.

"Homes right across the country are in a deplorable state and incidents such as these can happen anywhere," Zoia Sokolova, director of Sofia orphanage 'Assen Zlatarov' told AFP.

This centre, held up as a model for the system, "barely keeps (its) head above water" and is also toiling with a dearth of qualified personnel.

Centralised efforts to move away from the cruel practice of isolating mentally handicapped or delinquent children have created a strain on resources which is proving very difficult to manage.

"Twenty percent of our children come from families with serious problems, 14 percent have been convicted of crimes and another eight percent have suffered from sexual violence," Sokolova added.

"People expect that our homes can produce miracles.... Without (proper) support from the authorities, it's an absurd expectation."

On the grounds of poor care, the government agency charged with protecting children's rights has recommended the closure of sites such as the one at Tran and a home for mentally handicapped children at Mogilinio, in the north.

But these orphanages continue to operate because their staff have jobs which cannot be given up.

"The homes produce marginals, outsiders," says Slavka Koukova of Bulgaria's Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, part of an international network of independent, not-for-profit watchdogs which has been monitoring these homes for years.

"The problems within these homes stem from incompetence at every level," she underlined.

Efforts at reform have been underway since 2001, with the very worst orphanages closed and families, usually Roma (gypsy), given encouragement to take their children back.

Some adoptions, however, have been snarled up in red tape for as long as three or four years, whereas the very fact of living in these establishments hinders a child's development, Sokolova said.

In 2003, Bulgaria began reforming its adoption system to bring it into line with international norms and in an effort to stamp out corruption and child trafficking.

But the net result has been a sharp fall in the numbers finding new families: just 708 children were adopted in 2007, against 1,600 per year prior to the changes.

Copyright © 2008 AFP. All rights reserved.