Human
rights news: October 2004
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11 October 2004 |
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Human Rights Project Press ReleaseBulgaria: Roma Children are not Children of Bulgaria, Decides Parliament
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Sofia, October 10 - On October 7, 2004 the Bulgarian Parliament rejected at first reading the Draft Law for Creation of a Fund for Educational Integration of Minority Children. The Draft was introduced in the National Assembly by the Council of Ministers. The ruling majority, which is composed by the National Movement Simeon the Second (NMSS) and of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) - the political party of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria, could not reach the necessary number of 112 MPs for passing of the Draft. 106 MPs voted ‘for’ the Government’s draft, 66 were ‘against’ and 50 MPs abstained from voting. Thus, the opposition (1), which in this case got the support of one of the factions of the ruling NMSS stopped the adoption of the Draft. With this voting Parliament practically eliminated the possibility for such a law to be approved by the end of the term of the current National Assembly because of some special features of the Rules of the Parliament. The proposed Draft provided for a special fund for the desegregation of Roma children. This fund was supposed to collect money designed especially for the desegregation of the so-called ‘Roma schools’. It has been provided that the main part of the money was to be secured from international donors such as the World Bank, the Open Society Institute etc. With the establishment of this fund, the Bulgarian State would have created a legal framework for accumulation of international money. The provided financial participation of the state was minimal. At present in Bulgaria there are 106 schools and pre-school facilities in which the student body is 100% Roma. In addition to this, around 70% of the Romani children are currently educated in the Romani ghetto schools. In addition, there are over 300 schools in which the share of Romani children is 50%-100% (2). The segregated Romani schools are a heritage from the totalitarian regime. The segregated ‘ghetto’ schools provide students with an education of extremely inferior quality. As a result of the long-term existence of these schools, the share of Roma aged 15 and over who are without any education is 13,3%. The share of those who have only primary education is 76,4%; 10% have secondary education and only 0,2% have university education (3). It is well known that the general educational state of the ethnic Bulgarians and Turks is in a much better state. Since 2000 special projects of local Roma NGOs for desegregation of the Roma schools have been working in seven Bulgarian cities. They have been financially supported by the Open Society Institute – Budapest. The total amount of Roma children who take part in these projects and thus study in normal Bulgarian non-segregated schools is about 2,000 (4). The total number of Romani children of school age is around 106,000 and as it was noted above 70% of them study in segregated ghetto schools. It is absolutely clear that the financial and organizational possibilities of the non-governmental organizations do not allow them to enlarge the scope of the desegregation projects. Only the state can take charge of the enlargement of the process of desegregation. The desegregation of the Roma schools is one of the most important steps that the state has to do if it wants to fulfil its obligations according to the Framework Program for Equal Integration of Roma in Bulgarian Society. This Program was approved by the Government in April 22, 1999 and the present ruling coalition has confirmed its engagement to implement it. Unfortunately, the Draft was rejected without any reasonable argumentation. On the contrary, part of the reasons against the Draft were openly nationalistic. ‘This Draft establishes preferences for the minority children and puts the majority students at a disadvantageous situation,’ said some MPs of the left opposition. On September 14 three NGOs – the Interethnic Initiative for Human Rights, Human Rights Project and Equal Access Foundation - held a special round table devoted to the problems of the education of the Roma children. They wrote a special Open Letter to the National Assembly and called on it to pass the Draft as soon as possible. The document was backed by over than 100 Romani and non-Romani organizations. On September 30, 2004 the Open Letter was handed in to the National Assembly. On October 8, 2004 six (5) NGOs held a special press conference at which they expressed their protest against the decision of Parliament. ‘Unfortunately we are forced to generalize that the attempts for solving the problems of the education of the Roma children meet a serious resistance on the part of the political class. Obviously, the Bulgarian politicians prefer Roma to remain illiterate and poor. They prefer so in order to continue to manipulate thea before every election’, says the document from this press conference. The title of it is ‘Roma children are not children of Bulgaria, decides Parliament’. Human Rights Project will continue its efforts for adoption of legislation in favour of the state engagement to the desegregation of the Roma schools. We call on all human rights and Roma organizations to pressure the Bulgarian National Assembly for the adoption of the rejected Draft as soon as possible. Endnotes: (1) There are two main opposition fractions in the Bulgarian parliament: the first one is of the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the second is of the right parties United Democratic Forces and Democrats for Strong Bulgaria. (2) See Stigmata – Segregated schooling of Roma in Central and Eastern Europe , a research, published by the ERRC, Budapest, May 2004, p.p. 10, 22 (4) For more details see Kanev, K. The First Steps: an Evaluation of the Non-governmental Desegregation Projects in Six Bulgarian Cities. An External Evaluation Report to the Open Society Institute. Open Society Institute, 2003 (5) Consultative Council on the Education of the Minority Children, Equal Access Foundation, Human Rights Project, Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, Interethnic Initiative for Human Rights, International Center on the Minority Problems On behalf of HRP:
Dimitrina Petrova, Dimitar Georgiev, Mitio Kemalov and Rumian Russinov are members of the Board. Emil Cohen emilcohen@bnc.bg is Executive Director. Our address: 23 Solunska St., 6th floor, 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria Emil Cohen |