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10.01.2017To marry the ghetto ...

The first week after the New Year is so hungry for news that it is not very difficult Zlatka, snow and chutney to divide our society. I am not going to talk about snow and chutney. Not that for Zlatka was not spoken enough; we talk about it every year ... and most of those who talk most, remained just talking, to have something to talk again next year ... I mean some people, who often go to Brussels and Strasbourg... 

And the girls like Zlatka were not married now. They were married when they were born ... they were married the ghetto.

Close your eyes for a moment and imagine that you are Zlatka - a 13 year - old girl, born in Nadezhda neighbourhood (a place, where those who come into the neighborhood, say there is no Hope - it is strange that the names of most of these neighborhoods sound so optimistic - Hope, East, Sunrise ...). Her parents have not completed school - and why should they -  there is no job in the neighborhood and outside it - who will hire gypsies. Why should they learn? Why should Zlatka learn - "she won't become a proffessor" - she can read and write, and don't need anything more. She has to be a good housewife, and be able to care for the children. 

I do not know if you were able to imagine the world of Zlatka, but there are no surprises - it is certain, predetermined and clear. There is only one perspective in it. There is no other, because nobody wanted it- there is no way for Zlatka to want it, because she does not know other way. If you have not eaten chocolate, there is no way to miss it and to wish for it. The example with Zlatka is the same - why to change her life when she had no idea that another life exists. I do not want to justify her parents, but they have grown up in the same hopelessness ... and the children of Zlatka will grow in the same manner if someone does not break the pattern of the ghetto. And I am not talking only of spatial marginalization in which the girls like Zlatka live. Much more scary is the ghetto in our minds because everyone should destroy it himself. However, this cannot happen without a little help: first someone to make you see that the medal has another side, to make you create a dream (first to realize that it makes sense to dream), then helping you to convince yourself enough that you can achieve that dream. Then comes all possible support - from all - the internal and the external world. Support from the inner world - the community is required to give you the confidence that you can succeed, that will help you to deal with challenges, to show you all those girls and boys who have also left the ghetto, but managed to change their destiny and are now doctors, teachers, lawyers ... because they have wished for it. Then comes the support from outside - from all those institutions which should create a supportive environment - from the school to help you in creating your own dream and which also show you that believes in you and that you can succeed. Because education is the only thing that can get you out of the ghetto - of that ghetto that is inside us. Then comes the support of other institutions that can help you handle the challenges, instead of condemning you of being born in the ghetto, and thus to confirm this destiny("we cannot mess - it's your Gypsy staff").

Speaking of early marriages and the Roma community, we must emphasize two things. First, that early marriages are by no means characteristic of the Roma community. They were rather characteristic of any traditional society. I will not list the reasons, but anyone can read them as long as you take a few basic ethnographic manuals or textbooks. Until recently, early marriages also characterized traditional groups within the Roma community. Deliberately not telling "the whole community". Because the Roma community is not homogeneous, it is composed of many groups and subgroups. Each in a different period has passed or passes process of modernization. An integral part of this process is to increase the age for starting cohabitation, increased education, empowerment of women and their inclusion in public life. Similar processes have taken place in the Bulgarian and the Turkish community at different times from the Renaissance onwards. And speaking of diversity, one of the groups in the Roma community, which first began its revival and began overcoming these traditional conservative practices is from Sliven, but the other quarter - Komluka. Not accidentally currently Sliven is one of the cities with the most Roma graduates - second and third generation of doctors, teachers ... who unfortunately did not make the news - but that's another topic and my speech is not for it ...

My speech is for traditions and this is the second thing that should be emphasized when it comes to the Roma community and early marriages. Or as they say in the famous advertising "Traditions are not what they used to be." Even in the most conservative Roma groups such as the Thracian tinkers, Burgudzhii and Kaldarashi tradition of early marriages is gradually losing against globalization and modernization. Just one example of this - the other associations, connected to Roma and brides is invariable "market of brides" in Theodor's Day, that characterizes precisely Thracian tinkers. More and more often, tinkers girls drop out of school and already there are single cases of those who marry before the age of 18. Moreover, in recent years Amalipe Center, supported by the Trust for social achievement, supports several girls to complete secondary education. They are not supported only by Amalipe - their parents are also beside them. Ivanka is one of them. This year she finished high school. As a second subject for matriculation she chose Philosophy, and passed it with 5,24 ... Ivanka really comes from a traditional community - her mother married earlier, by agreement of the parents ... and occasionally still walks with a headscarf ... However, Ivanka does not live in the ghetto - she lives in a normal community, which learns to adapt traditions to the realities of our time ...

Ghetto and poverty cannot used to - on the contrary, they build their mechanisms to resist change and to bond more tightly its members, because if you allow the change, it will lead to the disappearance of the ghetto (which is not the case of traditions, because when there is preserved identity, pride of the past and a sense of belonging to a community - those that do not violate human rights and generally accepted norms - are also retained and lead to further strengthening of values in this community). Early coexistence is one of the typical characteristics of this model of living. And it has nothing to do with ethnicity of a group. It has to do with the ghetto and poverty that have their ghetto-culture, their life and body. I will mention a few data that support this thesis. First, there are the results of the survey of family attitudes in the Roma community, conducted in 2010 by Amalipe and Open Society Institute. [1] When comparing age of first cohabitation and first marriage with average monthly income per household, there is clear correlation - the higher the net average monthly income per household, the higher is the age at first marriage, i.e. the risk of early cohabitation is higher in households with lower income.

The same goes for the area which is occupied by a household. When comparing age of first cohabitation with the average living area per household again clearly highlights the correlation - the greater the surface area per person, the higher is the age at first marriage and the beginning of the first cohabitation. In other words, the risk of early family life is higher in households that live in households with lower average area per person. 

The connection between education and early marriages, I will not stop here, is unmistakable. I'll put only one chart from the same study that says enough.

Second, highly worrying trend is that in northwestern Bulgaria, which traditionally holds the championship for the highest average age for the start of cohabitation in the Roma community (about 20 years) suddenly in the last two years have frequent cases of early marriages and early births. School principals, where similar cases in recent decades were missing, nervously began to seek explanation and methods to prevent and combat this phenomenon. A detail that the principals and teachers themselves share is that these cases do not happen in Roma, but also in Bulgarian community. 

 The explanation is simple - Northwestern Bulgaria is the poorest region in the country. Prospects and opportunities facing young people are very limited there. Those who are able and eager to realize- migrate and seek fulfillment outside their birthplace. Some of the more enterprising youths remain and quickly take advantage of the limited resources that are available locally. And what about the rest - to bear children ... regardless of ethnicity...

Spoken much again - seeking mistakes and solutions ... We have no benefit from mutual accusations. Everyone is guilty. The biggest offender, however, is inaction and uselessness. And they are most easily to change - with total effort and acceptance...

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