The number of Roma in Slovakia could increase by more than half over the next 16 years, claims Branislav Sprocha from the Demographic Research Institute in an interview with SME daily yesterday.
Sprocha put the current number of Roma at around 402,000, while predicting this figure would spiral to over 640,000 by 2030, as the number of children being born continues to rise and people live longer. Sprocha claims that Roma living in shanty settlements are giving birth to four or five children, putting the numbers down to a lack of education and poverty.
It was always a problem getting exact figures on the true number of Roma in Slovakia and Sprocha pointed to a similar problem in the three years of research. Many of the women were almost ashamed to admit how many kids they had, and so would deduct one or two, so the exact numbers are difficult to obtain.
The infant mortality rate among Roma is three times higher than the national average, with twenty children in a thousand not surviving birth, compared to just six as the average. According to available data, Roma also live shorter (men 55, women 59.5), which is up to seven years shorter than the national average.
Merry Christmas DC 🙂
Quite a telling little report in many ways:
The DRI basically admit that their base line figures for the current number of Roma is arrived at by the SWAG method (Swift Wildarsed Guess), which just proves that the fairly simple process of people counting is beyond the abilities of the Nation.
The number of children born in Roma communities is an estimate based on ….. asking the mothers, who apparently lie, so an arbitrary adjustment has been made to the figures. When you take the lack of an accurate base line figure and add the creative accounting the result must be pure fiction. It also proves that in the case of the Roma there are no records of births or deaths, which while speaking truths about the incompetance of the authorities also torpedos the claim that the Roma only have kids to boost their benefits. I presume claims for dependant children have to be accompanied by some sort of proof, some official record?
The last two sets of figures should be studied closely by the EU. Here we have an “official” report that admits that the Roma minority suffer from much higher infant mortality and shorter life expectancy than the lilywhite majority and it’s time someone asks “Why?”
The fact that it has taken three years, probably cost an arm and a leg, presumably funded by the EU, to produce a report which is inaccurate, full of contradictions yet still manages to shoot the authors and the Nation in the foot speaks volumes.