Overview 2000

(excerpt from "Keeping the distance or taking the chances" edited by ENAR
www.enar-eu.org )

Voyagers: descendants of the former occupational travellers. Ethnically they cannot be considered as Roma/Sinti, but they share the same culture. They now live in caravans or houses. Their first language is Dutch (in Flanders) and French (in Wallonia). They still use a lot of words of their own language, called Bargoens. Their number is estimated at 7,000. Their religion is mainly Catholic.

Manouches: the Sinti in Belgium (as in France, Switzerland, and parts of Germany) call themselves Manouche. Most probably they are descendants of the "Egyptians" that arrived in Belgium from 1421 onwards. Sometimes they also are called "the first migration". The Manouches mainly live in caravans. Their first language is the Sinti Romanes, their second language is the one of the region where they live. They count about 1,500 souls. Some of the Manouches belong to the Catholic Church, some to a Christian "born again" movement.

Roms: the Roma in Belgium call themselves Rom. They arrived in the middle of the 19th century, and are also called the second migration. Their first language is Vlax Romanes, their second language is French. In Flanders Manouche children start learning Dutch only if they go to school. Roms live semi-nomadically: they travel in summer and stay at private or public camping sites during winter. We count about 750 Roms. They all belong to a Christian "born again" movement.

Roma: a wide variety of eastern-European Roma are finding their way to Belgium, especially after the fall of the Iron Curtain. They are sometimes called the third migration. Their number is estimated to be 20,000. Most of these Roma have the nationality of their country of origin (if it still exists!) and only a few of them have legal documents to stay in the country.

Estimates in Wallonia might show another 5,000 to 10,000 Belgian and foreign Roma/Sinti/Travellers.

Apart from that about 200 to 300 families of EU Roma/Sinti/Travellers travel through or around the country, occupying unofficial stopping sites.

Lodging

In Flanders and Brussels only twenty-eight official camping sites are available for about 400 families. 400 others have their caravans on private sites, mostly not complying with urban regulations, so they live in the permanent threat of being chased away. The other Roma/Sinti/Travellers live in houses, the majority being forced to do so by the lack of camping sites. The Roma are living in houses, mainly in the cities, and they move a great deal.

Schooling

A survey of 1994 shows that 94.6 % of the Voyager children were registered in a school but only 80.3% attended school more than four days a week (20% stayed at home on Wednesday since there was no class in the afternoon). Absenteeism increased with the age of the children, causing big problems in secondary schools.

Of the Manouche children about 81% are registered in a school but only 67.8% attend secondary school. The same phenomenon here: the older the children, the less they attend school.

The biggest problem is among the Roms: only 18.8% of the children attend school. This low figure is also caused by the fact that no Rom is attending secondary school.

Among the Belgian Roma/Sinti/Travellers in Flanders not one is known to participate in higher education. Some Roma who immigrated from eastern Europe are now starting at universities or other places of higher education.

The Roma are not one people, so we find big differences among them. However, everywhere the schools and other institutions complain about parents who prefer not to send their children to school. A rough estimate is that almost half of the children between six and eighteen go to school, with increasing absenteeism as they grow older.

Employment

The same survey revealed that 52.9% of the Roma/Sinti/Travellers live on social security, 26.7% were self-employed, 14.7% were employed (mostly in unskilled, temporary jobs). 5.7% had some other kind of income.

Here it must be mentioned that Roma/Sinti/Travellers in Belgium greatly prefer working for themselves. Persons who go and work for a boss have low esteem. Also the time schedule of employed people does not fit in with their social and family obligations. The 52.9% depending on social security mainly try to combine this income with informal revenue.

For the Roma who live in the country without legal documents only the informal labour market is available.

Health

A comparison was made in one province between the life expectancy of Travellers and that of the majority population. For the Traveller men the life expectancy was 54.8 and for the women 64.7 years. This is twenty years below the average for all men, and fourteen for women.

In Belgium only the Flemish region has adopted some policy towards Roma/Sinti/Travellers.

Lodging

In 28 municipalities a camping site has been installed, in almost every situation only after a long struggle. This policy started only in 1974. Up to now not even half the Roma/Sinti/Travellers live on a legal site. A new recent development is that the Flemish government is actively stimulating provinces and municipalities to install stopping and camping sites. The costs are subsidised up to 90% by the Flemish community. Nevertheless almost no new sites have become available. The budget of about one million € is used for renovation of existing sites.

In Wallonia some illegal sites are tolerated. Only one could be regarded as more or less official. The same situation holds true in Brussels.

Stopping sites are not official in Belgium, so travelling Roma/Sinti/Travellers are constantly being chased by the local authorities. Some groups however manage to negotiate and to receive permits for five to ten days.

Social services

Since 1977 a centre is being funded (as an NGO subsidised by the Flemish government): the Vlaams Centrum Woonwagenwerk (Flemish centre for social work in caravans). Since 1999 this centre has been a part of the Vlaams Minderheidencentrum (Flemish Centre for Minorities), founded according to a law defining the Flemish minority policies. In this centre about 12 people are working specifically with Roma/Sinti/Travellers. This work can mainly be defined as community development. Most of the energy is dedicated to grassroots work and intercultural negotiation with and/or on behalf of groups of Roma/Sinti/Travellers.

Roma/Sinti/Travellers in Wallonia and Brussels have no specific service except for two people who mediate between local authorities and travelling Roma/Sinti/Travellers on stopping sites. They have to rely on the regular services or they call for the Flemish mediators.

Education

The regulations for other minorities do not apply for Roma/Sinti/Travellers, since the main criterion for defining target groups in education is the place of birth of the mother. Since almost all the Roma/Sinti/Traveller have been living in Belgium for a long time they were not considered as a target group for special educational measures. This will change in a new decree that is being drafted to come into force in the school year 2002-2003.

For the children of travelling Roms three schools are being provided with two extra teachers and extra running costs (e.g., for transport). This project started in 1995 and as a result almost half of the Rom children are attending basic school, even if in a very irregular way. These projects will be stopped as soon as the new decree comes into force (September 2002).

In Wallonia and Brussels too only a few schools have some specific interest in Roma/Sinti/Travellers.

In the fields of employment, health, and culture no specific policy has been developed in the whole of Belgium.

Roma

The recently immigrating Roma are considered either as asylum seekers or illegal residents. For asylum seekers the usual provisions are available. After a time these Roma become illegal residents, and for these persons there is no policy at all except expulsion. Since expulsion on a large scale is not common, thousands of Roma are surviving on charity and informal business. Within the Belgian law they have a right to urgent medical care and education.

In the past the work for Roma/Sinti/Travellers was done by charitable organisations, mainly Catholic. From the beginning of the 1970’s those local organisations were invited to unite in order to receive subsidies from the Government. This is how the Vlaams Centrum Woonwagenwerk was funded in 1977.

This organisation is the only professional one in Belgium. There is also a Catholic mission with three part-time Flemish priests and one French-speaking. The "born again" missions have only volunteers as pastors.

The community development with Roma/Sinti/Travellers (in this text we will talk about Woonwagenwerk) has always taken up the role of the intercultural negotiator. This is based on the traditional way in which Roma/Sinti/Travellers organised their non-commercial relations with the main society. For this purpose they had throughout history to rely on individual persons (nobility, clergy, inn keepers, teachers). These persons acted as ambassadors of the main society and took care of almost every question concerning Roma/Sinti/Travellers. This ancient way of elaborate intercultural mediation fits perfectly into the specific relations of Roma/Sinti/Travellers with the main society.

What can be understood by a “nomadic culture” has been described above. The fundamental gap between Roma/Sinti/Travellers and the settled society, the “here and now” attitude, the flexible and egalitarian social structure, must always be kept in mind in personal contacts, in analysis of problems, and in drawing up plans for solutions.

The Woonwagenwerk always builds up its contacts pro-actively with the Roma/Sinti/Travellers. Experience shows that this is highly appreciated by the Roma/Sinti/Travellers and it is a solid way to start common actions.

The workers of the Woonwagenwerk spend a major part of their time in visiting as many Roma/Sinti/Travellers as possible.

- to provide an ombuds service to the families who have problems with one social institution or another;

A negotiator cannot afford to choose "which side he's on". He always finds himself between the conflicting parties. Professional mediation between Roma/Sinti/Travellers and the settled society fulfils a threefold function, comparable to a bridge: it has one pillar at each side plus a link between the two.

Stating the positions of Roma/Sinti/Travellers can be done effectively only by the Roma/Sinti/Travellers themselves. Therefore the Woonwagenwerk always tries to involve Roma/Sinti/Travellers spokespersons when in contact with authorities, social workers, etc., in the main society. These spokespersons have a right to be trained and prepared to make these contacts as effective as possible. The Woonwagenwerk takes care of this. Mainly because the training needs are so specific in every case, there is still no institutional training flexible enough to meet the needs of Roma/Sinti/Travellers.

This also means that Woonwagenwerk organises group meetings of Roma/Sinti/Travellers for specific policy discussions.

The twenty-eight official camping sites are all the result of a common struggle of Roma/Sinti/Travellers and Woonwagenwerk. The fact that the first site was created in 1974, and that about fifty more camping and/or stopping sites are still needed indicates that the struggle has been difficult and has not at all been won yet.

Most of the Roma/Sinti/Travellers in Belgium have access to social services. A lot of juridical procedures were needed to achieve this goal. Even today there are public services that refuse to serve Roma/Sinti/Travellers properly. The arguments used to 'justify' this vary from "lack of time" to the alleged "parasitism" of Roma/Sinti/Travellers. Right up to the present juridical procedures are being initiated by Woonwagenwerk to ensure the rights of Roma/Sinti/Travellers.

By submitting specific projects to official institutions Woonwagenwerk succeeded in:

- doubling the number of Belgian Roma children attending school. It took some three years of negotiating with the government and so far eight years of carrying out projects. These projects will be integrated in the regular support services to be set up in the school year 2002-2003;

- creating professional training sessions fully adapted to the Roma/Sinti/Travellers: in four years more than 150 took this opportunity. This succeeded only in one specific region where thanks to an efficient European partnership this opportunity could be offered. Mainstreaming the method will take further years of negotiating in the other regions of the country. One of the main obstacles are that mainstream training institutes work only for members of target groups who plan to work as employees. Till now Roma/Sinti/Travellers who want to be self-employed cannot be accepted in these schemes.

These projects have some specific features to meet the expectations of Roma/Sinti/Travellers:

Employment of Roma/Sinti/Travellers in Belgium, 2001

Education of the adult (18+) Roma/Sinti/Travellers in Belgium, 2001

School participation of children (to age eighteen years) of Roma/Sinti/Travellers in Belgium, 2001

[1] This study is mainly based on experiences in Brussels and the Flemish (northern) part of Belgium

[2] Developed at the University of Leuven by Prof. Walgrave et al.

[3] We’ll go into this in detail in chapter 5, “Policies”

[4] Based on a limited survey of 175 families (627 persons) of Belgian Roma/Sinti/Travellers