Roma in Slovakia

   The Slovak republic is one of the multinational states. Except for the majority Slovak nationality there are more or less several national minorities and ethnic groups. Based on the last census in 2011 the citizens of Roma nationality make up for 2.4% of the Slovak population (Statistical office of the SR, 2011).

The Roma make up for the second largest national minority in the SR. 105,738 citizens of Slovakia said they are the Roma. The estimates of experts suggest that the number of the Roma in Slovakia is several times higher while the unwillingness of the Roma to acknowledge their nationality is caused by the fear of the persecution and the process of social integration of many Roma into the majority society (Statistical office of the SR, 2011). The prognosis of the Roma population development says that Slovakia should have about 520,000 Roma by 2025 (Vašečka, 2002).

   The position of the majority population towards the Roma have long been significantly worse than the attitude to other population groups. The different culture of the Roma minority and the overall way of life of the Roma are seen most of the population as a negative and dominant view is that most Roma will not even know how to adapt to social norms relatively high level of crime among the Roma population, persistent racial prejudices of the majority population, extensive reproductive behavior Roma, abuse of social security benefits, temporary migration and related visa requirements for citizens of the Slovak Republic and Romania, etc., provoked increased aversion of the population of these countries against Roma. Mirror reflection of Slovak Roma in Belgium and was the Romanian Roma exodus to France, Austria (Kogan, V. Kopecký, P., 2005).

The main reason for the most serious problems related to the so-called deepening segregation of Roma. Positive solution to the Roma issue should begin with Roma inclusion, which must be the goal of the minority as well as majority of the population. Comparison social situation of Roma in the Slovak says that the situation (despite some positive steps) can be evaluated as very difficult, that's why you need increased efforts to improve the situation of the Roma minority.

Troubleshooting common life of the majority of the Roma minority is not only Slovak question, but the question of European importance (Koganová, V., Kopecký, P., 2005).

   The entrance of the SR into the European Union has brought upon certain basic changes, which affect the approach of public administration towards the Roma. It is the possibility to solve some of the Roma problems through institutionalized tools of the EU as well as the cooperation of activities with other countries, since the marginalization of ethnic minorities is the issue of several of its member states (Koganová, V., Kopecký, P., 2005).

References:

• Koganová, V., Kopecký, P., 2005. Rómska problematika na pozadí vybraných faktov zo slovenskej a rumunskej reality. In Středoevropské politické studie. 2005. roč. 4, č. 2-3, s. 322-336, ISSN 1212-7817.
• Vašečka, M. (2002): Rómovia. In: Kollár, M. - Mesežnikov, G. (ed.): Slovensko 2002. Súhrnná správa o stave spoločnosti I. Bratislava, IVO.
• Štatistický úrad SR, 2011, Sčítanie obyvateľov, domov a bytov 2011, Dostupné na: http://census2011.statistics.sk/tabulky.html