News server theportugalnews.com reports that the first-ever national study of the Roma in Portugal was published at the end of June. Its findings include the information that Portuguese Roma achieve little formal education, marry young, and mainly work in fairs.
Commissioned by Portugal’s High Commissioner of Migration, the study interviewed almost 1 600 Roma last year, theportugalnews.com reports. The study coordinator told the Lusa News Agency that Roma youth under 34 achieve various levels of schooling, that those 45 or older live in "very deficient conditions", and that a third group aged 24-35 lives in comparative stability, traveling form fair to fair for work.
This group was said to have more non-Romani friends than the other groups. In general, Romani girls in Portugal spend much less time in school and are said to marry by age 15.
At this time last year the European Roma Rights Centre contacted the Portuguese authorities to express its concern regarding the forced eviction of 15 Romani families in Vidigueira, including the demolition of their homes and destruction of their personal effects. Local NGOs alerted the advocacy organization to the eviction, which involved destroying the homes of children and pregnant women in a neighborhood where Roma had been living for approximately 30 years.
