Roma children facing poverty in Sweden

On occasion of the Third Universal Periodic Review on Sweden, the Human Rights Council

has reviewed Sweden’s compliance with previously accepted recommendations under the

UPR process. The Council highlighted that challenges to the protection of human rights still

remain.

In relation to the Roma community, the Human Rights Council reiterated its concerns that

children from the Roma community are particularly affected by poverty.

When trying to assess the extent of the phenomenon, it is important to take into account the

lack of official data on the economic situation of Roma people. The lack of statistics is the

result of the Swedish Personal Data Act, which prohibits the collection of ethnic data.

However, thanks to a survey study conducted in 2016 by the European Union Agency for

Fundamental Rights, it was possible to get an insight into the magnitude of phenomenon.

The study concluded that 80% of Roma interviewed were at risk of poverty, a percentage

which is well above the EU average (17%). 30% of Roma children lived in households where

someone went to bed hungry at least one in the previous month. 30% of households live

without tap water and 46% have no indoor bathroom, toilet or shower. 53% of young Roma

children attend early childhood education.

Sources:

https://undocs.org/A/HRC/WG.6/35/SWE/2

https://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2016/second-european-union-minorities-and-discriminati

on-survey-roma-selected-findings

Sources picture:

https://fra.europa.eu/en/news/2016/80-roma-are-risk-poverty-new-survey-finds