"[Roma] are the largest minority on the continent and their situation is deplorable in terms of lack of respect for their human dignity, human well-being, being targeted for hate, exclusion, and shoved to the edges of our societies," European Council commissioner for human rights Michael O’Flaherty told EUobserver in an interview.
This is just wrong.
Poor and marginalized people commit acts of desperation. Acts like raising their children to be thieves at a young age. Once they stop being poor and marginalized, they’re just people and blend into society.
Unfortunately Roma are poor and marginalized.
I mean they also refuse to let their children go to school, because they very much don’t want them to be part of society at large. They’re scared their children will get jobs and stop being part of their community. They’re very much “us vs them”. Those who aren’t into that “us vs them” mentality, make an effort to get out and, depending on country, have a pretty good shot at becoming not criminals.
It is more complicated than that, and it changes country by country. There are cultural/traditional issues that contribute to perpetrating the vicious circle of poverty. One such factor is preventing kids from attending schools. This makes some people unable to speak local language and functionally unemployable, paving the road to poverty and marginalization.
That said, at least in my country this issue affects a tiny minority of the Roma population. An even smaller minority is apolid, mostly coming from ex-Yugoslavia, which obviously causes several problems with the ability to work.
The main aspect though is that “solutions” proposed by many governments, like building “camps” when they can settle, are just ineffective from all points of view, prevent integration and foster the tendency to a conservative and closed culture.