Anti-Roma discrimination on the rise

Once again it would seem anti-traveller sentiment is gathering momentum across Europe, with President Nicolas Sarkozy leading the way with his deportation of the Roma to Romania and Bulgaria.

The president has moved to dismantle 300 illegal camps and squats, claiming they are "sources of illegal trafficking, of profoundly shocking living standards, of exploitation of children for begging, of prostitution and crime."

A recently leaked memo from the French interior ministry indicated there may have been deliberate targeting of the Roma, in breach of the French constitution and international law.

Some 5,000 Roma have so far been deported to Romania and Bulgaria this year.

The French government's action followed violent flare-ups between police and Roma in July in the Loire Valley town of Saint Aignan.

There has been shock among many in France and internationally over Sarkozy's expulsions. Some 100,000 people rallied recently against the policy.

EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding has also warned France of the possibility that infringement proceedings for discriminatory application of the Free Movement Directive may be launched.

"I personally have been appalled by a situation which gave the impression that people are being removed from a member state of the European Union just because they belong to a certain ethnic minority. This is a situation I had thought Europe would not have to witness again after the second world war," she says.

Britain and Ireland have also seen their share of hostility to the travelling community. The most open aggression came last year when 115 Romanian Roma were driven from Belfast.

Yvonne McNamara, director of the Irish Traveller Movement, likens the coming eviction of Britain's biggest camp, Dale Farm in Essex, to actions taken in other parts of Europe.

"No provision has been put in place for the families being evicted from the area," says McNamara.

Roma and Irish travellers are protected by the Race Relations Act 1976 in Britain, yet this does not stop discrimination being widely practised against this minority.

Traveller children regularly experience discrimination at school with the ITM reporting nine out of 10 children experiencing racial abuse, while nearly a third have been bullied or physically attacked.

In 2003 15-year-old Irish traveller Johnny Delaney was murdered in Ellesmere Port.

The story of Irish traveller Kathleen Stoke's youngest son is instructive. All four of her children were bullied at school. Her youngest son fought back and was expelled.

"When he went to another school, my second eldest advised him not to say that he was a traveller," said Kathleen, who lives in Dagenham.

"He hasn't, so now he is just seen as being Irish and is not bullied."

Chester-based GP Joseph O'Neill has told of poor health conditions among the travelling community, with asthma, bronchitis and chest pain commonplace.

Self-reported mental illness among travellers is at 19 per cent, compared with 9 per cent in the general population.

The travelling community has the highest level of maternal deaths among ethnic minority groups, with a miscarriage rate of 29 per cent, compared with 16 per cent for the general population.

The travelling community's life expectancy is 10 years lower than for the settled population.

The level of opposition to traveller encampments struck home recently when nine acres of agricultural land in Essex was bought by 16 local householders for £180,000.

Agricultural land costs on average around £5,000 an acre, so in this case the locals were so concerned about the possibility of travellers moving in that they paid four times the going rate to stop them.

The lack of site provision is creating real friction between the travelling and settled communities across the country, which is whipped up by the media.

The shortage of sites has been contentious ever since 1994 when the Conservative government repealed the Caravans Act 1968 which put a statutory obligation on local authorities to provide sites. As a result, travellers were put into a state of perpetual motion, continually being moved on from one place to another.

The last Labour government did act to address the issue, pushing local authorities to identify areas under the regional spatial strategy that could be used for sites. The government then provided a fund to develop the sites.

The coalition government has done away with this strategy, returning to the public order approach, although one of the coalition's sops is offering some financial incentives to local authorities to provide sites.

There is a clear hostility across Europe to the travelling community, often born out of ignorance.

Developments in France and elsewhere indicate a further intolerant step against this much-maligned minority.