E/CN.4/2000/16/Add.1
page 25
reduces these children’s chances of receiving a normal primary and secondary education and
means they have no access at all to higher education. Since 1992, the law has forbidden
ethnic data gathering so there are no recent statistics in this respect. However, according to
1995 figures, in 309 special schools Gypsies accounted for 41 per cent of a total of
27,365 children while representing only 7 per cent of all school-age children. According to some
of the people who spoke to the Special Rapporteur, the situation is much the same at present.
112. The discriminatory treatment of Gypsy children in the Hungarian school system is
particularly evident in the primary school in Pethe Ferenc, in Tiszavasvári district (in the east of
Hungary). It was the practice in this school to separate Gypsy children from the other pupils and
to forbid them to enter the school cafeteria and gym, or to organize promotion ceremonies, which
were different from those of the other children. On 22 April 1999, in response to a complaint by
14 children of Gypsy origin, represented by the non-governmental organization Roma Civil
Rights Foundation, a court found the school guilty of racial discrimination and ordered the
Tiszavasvári town council to pay compensation of 100,000 forint (US$ 450).
113. The other problematic area is discrimination in relation to employment. Numerous
complaints were submitted by Roma to the Parliamentary Commissioner in connection with
employment: in several cases, when the employers realized that the job-seeker (whom they had
found suitable for the job on the basis of a telephone conversation) was a Rom, they turned the
applicant down, saying that the job was already taken. Considering the difficulty of proving
discrimination in such cases, current legislation seems sufficient to restrict discriminatory
behaviour. Article 75 of Government Decree No. 17/1968 on petty offences orders that
discrimination against employees be punished. This regulation is implemented by either the
notary of the local council or the so-called “labour inspectorates”. The inspectorates are
authorized to impose a public administrative fine (ranging from 50,000 to 1 million forint) on
any employer infringing this article. However, a different picture emerges in practice: no
procedure for the implementation of article 75 of the government decree was initiated and no
fine was imposed on employers in 1998 or in previous years.
114. As a result of discrimination, Roma are practically absent from the service sector in
Hungary. There are almost no Roma taxi-drivers, shop assistants, kitchen workers in pubs and
restaurants, or doormen at banks or hotels. Roma are employed as garbage-collectors,
street-sweepers or factory workers. The vast majority, however, are unemployed. The
unemployment rate among Roma is estimated at 60 per cent; outside relatively prosperous
Budapest, areas with nearly 100 per cent unemployment among Roma are not uncommon,
according to several sources.
3. Racist violence by the police
115. Hostility towards Gypsies would appear to be almost systemic in the Hungarian police
force. In general, the police maintain that the Roma pose more problems than the rest of the
population; the Roma, for their part, believe that they are systematically targeted by the police.
Non-governmental sources told the Special Rapporteur that the general anti-Roma attitude of the
police force is indicated by the high number of cases of off-duty police officers harassing Roma.
On 31 July 1998, an off-duty non-Roma police officer from Budapest verbally and physically
abused a group of women attending a conference in a holiday resort in Balanszemes. The officer