Women Need an Education in Roma

Afrik Update

EDUCATION,Roma

By Rebecca Ratcliffe

Desperate poverty – combined with traditions such as early marriage and the belief that girls should care for younger siblings – means that many Roma girls leave school at 10. 

                               Florina Milos (with her son Denis), who dropped out of education when she was 10           



"My oldest daughter says she wants to become a nurse. I explain that is not a possibility now because we don't have money for college. We will manage somehow, I hope. For now I tell her to study.

Florina lives in a two-room house with no running water in Targoviste, a city north-west of the Romanian capital Bucharest. Despite the smiles of her four oldest children, who crowd around to cuddle their two-month-old brother, her family faces crisis. "I haven't paid rent since January. I'm borrowing money to survive but I'm in great debt. I earn what I can by collecting bottles on the streets for recycling, but it's not enough."

Florina dropped out of education when she was 10 – the average age at which Roma girls leave school. Illiterate and unskilled, any job she does secure is likely to be for minimal pay.

In Romania, education is free but equipment, and shoes to wear when trekking through snow to get to school in winter, are not. Desperate poverty – combined with traditions such as early marriage or, more commonly, the belief that girls should care for younger siblings – means many do not complete school.

But a lack of education has lasting consequences, says Sorina Fekette, a social worker in Bucharest. "Domestic violence is a problem – so is prostitution," she adds. "It's the only way they can earn money. If their husbands leave, they are powerless."

Florina insists that despite financial pressures, she won't let her children drop out of their school, which is run by Save the Children. Established to help Roma children access education, and funded through the Ikea Foundation, it does not charge for the equipment or dinners provided.

"We show mothers the benefits of school," says Danela Gatlan, head teacher at Mihai Viteazul School, Targoviste. "We have female role models who come in to explain that college and university are possibilities."

A 2004 study by the United Nations found that a third of Roma women living in south-eastern Europe are illiterate, compared with a fifth of Roma men. More recent research carried out by Unicef in Albania shows a similar gender gap – Roma women there spend an average of 5.5 years in education, a figure which stands at eight years for men.