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Presentation Lithuania
Tadas Leončikas, Institute for Social Research
Svetlana Novopolskaja, Roma Community Centre
Gražina Savickaja, Department of National Minorities and
Lithuanians Living Abroad under the Government of the Republic
of Lithuania
“Community centres for Roma” as an example
for new integration strategies in Lithuania
Roma in Lithuania: baseline situation
G. Savickaja
According to estimations, there are about 3,000 Roma in Lithuania, which has a population
of 3,4 million. In 2001 census, 16,5 per cent of population declared ethnicity is other than
Lithuanian, while 2,571 registered themselves as Roma/Gypsies.
Roma live throughout Lithuania, but are mainly concentrated in or next to a few largest
towns. However small the overall community, it has preserved its main language and
contains a variety of traditions. Regardless of cultural and social diversity within the
community, many families live without any certainty of income or employment, without
prospects for improved housing, with many children outside the educational system and
consequently without professional training.
While these are the problems for Roma throughout the country, the situation is most
complicated in a largest residential concentration of Roma, Kirtimai, which is a ghettoised
settlement in the industrial outskirts of Vilnius with ca 500 inhabitants. Many difficulties
faced by Roma community are related to poverty; the Kirtimai settlement also suffers from
problems related to sale of illegal drugs. Image of relatedness to crime harms the image of
Roma in society; the polls in 2000-2007 showed that 67-77 per cent of population would
not like to have Roma as their neighbours.
Nearly half of Lithuania’s Roma are younger than 20 years of age (46 per cent according
to 2001 census), while this age group constitutes 27 per cent nationwide. The figure
suggests that education and success in entering labour market will be crucial for the future
development of this community. Finding sources of income alternative to crime is
particularly important for Roma youth with disadvantaged background.
At present though, there is a high rate of Roma who do not know the Lithuanian
language. Unlike other minorities whose younger generation knows Lithuanian better than
elder people, Roma exhibit a “reverse distribution”. The deteriorating knowledge of
Lithuanian among the younger Roma may in fact indicate that segregation deepened during
the past decade or so.
Although numerically small, the Roma minority remains little affected by the state
policies implemented so far. The study in 2004 revealed though that certain changes are
noticeable in recent years with regard to the percentage of Roma children enrolled in
schools, which has increased in comparison to previous years. However, there has been no
breakthrough in solving massive unemployment of the Roma.
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