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Body politics: Roma minority

Gnther Grass: Losses, 1992


Everywhere Gypsies are the lowest of the low. Why? Because they are different. Because they steal, are restless, roam, have the Evil Eye and that stunning beauty that makes us ugly to ourselves. Because their mere existence puts our values in question. Because they are all well in operas and operettas, but in realitythey are anti-social, odd and dont fit in. Torch them! shout the skinheads.

Kateina Pulkrbkov, Radka Dudov

The Roma Minority: Changing Definitions of Their Status In: Women and Social Citizenship in Czech Society: Continuity and Change. Institute of Sociology, 2009

Special groups of women, reproductive engineering and healthy population In: Interupce v esk republice: Zpas o ensk tla

Basics

2010: 180 250,000 Roma in the CR (1.46%) = largest ethnic minority group X only 33,000 self-identified in 1991 6 different subgroups by origin > heterogeneity Currently no discourse on intersectionality Roma women made invisible Real social exclusion, ethnic segregation, marginalization, discrimination Social and ethnic aspects mixed

History I

3 immigration waves from Slovakia:


after WW2, 1950s-1960s heavy industry, building, after 1965 Policy of the Dispersion of the Roma Population

1947 1970 1980 1989

16,752 60,000 100,000 146,000

History II

1. Social assimilation re-education 2. 1965 dispersion policy (40,000 Slovak Roma into the CR) from village citizens to blue-collar urban workers 3. normalization social integration, inferior population 4. transformation self-declaration possible, Citizenship Act 1993; sterilizations made public 5. EU accession social inclusion

Consequences

Foster care Nomadic lifestyle Language Traditional way of life community, patriarchal family Women as bearers of traditions

Prostitution* Violent crime Low education levels Poor housing Mandatory work Not recognized as a minority Usury* Unemployment* * especially after 1989

Current situation I

80% - cities and towns 80,000 poverty, social exclusion Naked apartments 60 80% Institutional social care Remedial schools Multiple discrimination of Roma women 2005 Decade of Roma Inclusion socialwatch.org, romea.cz, errc.org

Current situation II
Anti-Roma rallies Anti-Roma violence Arson attacks against homes 2009 Natlka 2010 Gwendolyn Albert: udeclared Apartheid

Sterilisations: from discipline to biopower


1950s: Roma + Czechs + Slovaks = 1 nation/population/state in need of education Late 1960s: failed Roma assimilation > dispersion failed in 1968 Change after 1970: Government commission, social situation via reducing the size of Roma families

Interruption under normalisation


1973 interruption on demand cancelled Commissions reintroduced Prevention of interruptions Legal prerequisites: > 35 years, 4 children or more
1976 planned parenthood for Roma families a must quality of population at stake One-time allowance for sterilised women 2005 Motejl: money, threat of taking away benefits, incomplete information, duress

Live births

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