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| - Roma and Travellers living in several western European countries face severe inequality and discrimination, according to a report issued Wednesday by the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA). The report draws on a survey of more than 4,500 Roma and Travellers in Belgium, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom carried out in late 2018 and 2019. Its findings "serve as an urgent reminder of the need for governments and society to break the vicious cycle of poverty and exclusion", according to FRA Director Michael O'Flaherty. In France, the results showed that 22 percent of Travellers live in a household that cannot afford basic items, such as food or heating. For almost of all the groups surveyed in the six countries, "unexpectedly high rates of adults and children face hunger", the report said. In Sweden, 22 percent "of all Roma and Travellers indicate that in the month before the survey a person had to go to bed hungry at least once". The wider patterns of deprivation and lack of job opportunities could be partly traced back to "rampant discrimination coupled with early school leaving", the report said. Roma and Traveller children often face hostility, with almost a third of parents saying that their children had been verbally harassed at school because of their identity. Two thirds of young adults from the communities surveyed had completed only lower secondary education. Lack of participation in the labour market is also a pattern picked up in the report, with for example only 13 percent of Traveller women in France having some paid work in the month before the survey. Other research by the FRA shows that almost half of EU citizens (45 percent) would feel uncomfortable with having Roma or Travellers as neighbours, with the proportion at its highest in France (52 percent). In terms of recommendations to improve the situation, the FRA calls on EU member states to "allow Travellers to follow their lifestyles, providing sufficient halting sites that offer decent accommodation". It also suggests work experience and public sector job schemes to improve access to employment. In the field of education the FRA says member states "need to tailor education to Roma and Travellers' needs through, for example, assigning special teaching assistants, home schooling and distance learning". jsk/jj
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