Only Eight in 100 Roma Women Have Jobs: Without Your Own Wage, It's Hard to Walk Out of a Violent Home

Only eight out of a hundred Roma women are employed. The figure comes from the Commission for the Prevention and Protection Against Discrimination, for the period from 2022 to 2024. The other 92 are without jobs, and for a woman in a violent home that isn't a statistic, it's a door that won't open.

Sabina Asanova, president of the Roma association "Rodop" from Štip, describes it without decoration: "A large number of women who suffer violence withdraw and don't have the courage to report it, because they have no support and don't know where to turn. The financial side is their biggest problem, and so is housing. They have nowhere to go back to."

And so the circle closes. Unfinished education and poverty make work harder to find, without work there's no income of your own, and without income there's no way out of an environment where a woman is exposed to violence. Discrimination, the association says, is felt when looking for work, in health institutions and in the education system. In every place where they're supposed to get help.

Psychologist Vesna Trajkovska points out that besides raising awareness, institutional and non-institutional support for victims matters, so they aren't left alone with the consequences of violence. That sounds reasonable, and that's exactly why it's strange that it has to keep being repeated.

Asanova's message to the women is to take courage, to report, to get an education, to get a job. It's a strong message, but the burden once again lands on the most vulnerable. The next question is for the institutions: how many employment programs and how many shelter places exist for these women, and who can name them?