Country: Albania
Group: Roma
Date Finalized: 3/13/2022
Team: Katherine Edwards (lead), Natasha Chandra, Alicia Hernandez, Jihui Kuang
Content Warning: None
Approximate Time Period: 1975 – Present
The Roma are a community in Albania which has experienced substantial neglect and for which there are no reliable population estimates (Minority Rights Group, 2015). The Roma came to Albania around the fifteenth century (Koinova, 2000; Minority Rights Group, 2015). While there are few documented cases of cultural persecution of Roma in Albania, in 1975, the government banned “inappropriate”, religiously “offensive” names, and many Roma were forced to change their family names to “acceptable” ones” in order to eliminate “alien influences.” and Non-Muslim Albanians, Greeks and members of other ethnic minorities with religiously “offensive” surnames were supposed to change them to “acceptable” ones in order to eliminate “alien influences” (Koinova, 2000). Moreover, Albanians often justify withholding basic services, such as piped water, from Roma communities because of the Roma’s nomadic lifestyle (De Soto, 2002).
Data Quality: 2 of 3. Able to find reliable information about ethnocide of Roma people in Albania.
Sources
- Hermine De Soto and Ilir Gedeshi. (2002, May 7). Dimensions of Romani Poverty in Albania (Hungary) [Text]. European Roma Rights Centre; European Roma Rights Centre. http://www.errc.org/cikk.php?cikk=774
- Koinova, M. (2000). Roma of Albania. Center for Documentation and Information on Minorities in Europe – Southeast Europe. Retrieved 30, January 2022, from https://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/46231/Koinova_RomaofAlbania.pdf?sequence=1.
- Minority Rights Group. Roma. (2015, June 19). https://minorityrights.org/minorities/roma/