Common Ground

Justice Delayed

Since 2004, 87 Romany women in the Czech Republic have filed complaints alleging coerced sterilization. They are still waiting for an answer.

Elena Gorolova holds her friend Helena Balagova’s granddaughter. Gorolova was sterilized after the birth of her second child, in 1990. Photo by Zach Franz.

By Zach Franz and Marie Novakova
Prague 2007: Common Ground

It is difficult to overstate the importance of children in Romany culture. Large families are the norm even among the poorest Romany, and the arrival of a baby is feted by the whole community. "No children, no happiness" is a common Romany expression.

So when Helena Balogova, a Romany woman from Ostrava in the Czech Republic, learned shortly after giving birth to her fourth child that doctors had sterilized her shortly after the delivery, and that she would never again be able to have children, she was devastated. 

"I felt ashamed and humiliated, and I still do to this day," Balogova, now 46, said through a translator during a recent interview at her home in Ostrava.

Interview: Jitka Chalankova

Roma are ‘cornered like powerless animals’

By Mary Rizos and Vendula Krizova
Prague 2007: Common Ground

Jitka Chalankova is deputy district commissioner for social affairs in the Czech city of Olomouc.

There are other minorities in the Czech Republic — Vietnamese, Ukrainian, Slovak and Chinese. Why are problems of Roma so “visible”?

These problems are increasing in every locality in this republic. Roma have been here for a long time and there are a lot of them. Vietnamese and Ukrainian have been here only for a short time. The problems we have now might be a result of the time of communism. A lot of things were ignored and those which were solved were not solved in the best way. I’m referring primarily to the forced assimilation. Roma families were forced to listen to what to do and how they should live.

Why is it so hard for them to find a job?

They are very specific group. It is a long-term process and the jobs they are qualified for, or are used to doing in generations past, like helping in agriculture, are disappearing. Because of lack of motivation for education beyond the most basic, Roma people in general are unskilled laborers. Also with the transformation of our economy these many of these jobs for unskilled laborers vanished, and it is really impossible that all of them will find new jobs in computers or in offices or something. It’s just a fact that the Roma don’t get a good education. Many of them were forced to go to “alternative schools” even when it was not necessary. Their position in the labor market is therefore very hard.

Democracy is hardest on the underdog

The new Czech style of governing doesn’t come easily

By Sean Breslin
Prague 2007: Common Ground

Over the past three weeks, I’ve been hearing comments about a race of people that I’d never hear in the United States, things that echo typical complaints about blacks prior to the Civil Rights Movement. Czech opinions on the Roma—that they are lazy, that they are all pickpockets, that they mooch off society—are not said with malice or anger or fear, but simply as matters of fact.

That people have these feelings doesn’t surprise me; what surprised me was the openness of the Czechs in discussing those stereotypes, how candid they were in saying exactly how they felt about the Roma. Many students in our dorm simply laughed when we told them the basis of our project, and wondered why we even cared about the Roma at all. For all intents and purposes, we were called “nigger-lovers.”

Czech Roma citizens live in worst of both worlds

The Czechs say the Roma are lazy;
Romas see discrimination at every turn

By Martin Brodsky and Sean Breslin
Prague 2007: Common Ground

In a Czech city that traces its roots back to the thirteenth century, the Úřad Práce (Unemployment Office) building in Plzen seems uncharacteristically modern, with its automatic doors and steely grey exterior. A glass-enclosed bulletin board just outside the entrance is covered with job listings, and similar flyers cling to the walls of the hallways inside.

Jan Andrlík, a department head at the office, deals with about 700 Roma people looking for work. While the overall unemployment rate for the Czech Republic at the beginning of the millennium hovered around eight or nine percent, Roma experienced unemployment rates topping 45 percent for the same time period. Although high, it’s one of the lowest Roma unemployment rates in the region. Hungary’s 56 percent and Slovakia’s is 84 percent.

Searching for economic solutions

Government programs offer assistance, but come up short on ideas, programs

By Martin Brodsky 
Prague 2007: Common Ground

Several funds sponsored by the European Union support the long-term unemployed. Such programs are not just about paying money to individuals and families, but about helping people to improve their job skills or  to overcome disabilities that have kept them out of the workplace. There is one special program for people from the Roma community.

Some companies take unfair advantage of government efforts to encourage hiring of the Roma.  In the Czech Republic it’s not unusual for a business to fire a Roma employee after only one year so that it can hire another Roma and get the government benefit all over again.