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These little Cigany (Roma) girls are from Eastern Hungary. Both have a loving family who do all they can for them.  PLEASE NOTE In order to prevent the likelihood of reprisals by local authority officials against the families of these children, we have hidden their identities. They both help around the house and help with their younger brothers and sisters. Sometimes they are lucky and receive new second hand clothes, like the ones they are wearing in this photograph. One day they will be mothers and will wish that their children have the best opportunities in Europe. Unfortunately, this is just a dream. In spite of having normal intelligence and speaking fluent Hungarian these girls are segregated and go to a Special school, along with 98% of the other Cigany children in their village. As a result they receive no education and no future. They with their Cigany friends will be thrown onto an accumulating human scrap heap at the bottom of the labour market. | No future.... This frank racial discrimination is driven by a perverse financial incentive from central government which pays local authorities according to the numbers of children placed in Special schools or streams. At the rate oif around 2,000 Euro/head/year. It is now well established that, throughout rural Hungary, Cigany children in small villages are forced into such "schools" irrespective of their basic intelligence. The basis of selection is that they are Cignay or Romani. The local authorites do not spend the funds received on Special school children's education but find other things to spend it on! This is in direct contradiction of the European Union's anti-discrimination laws.  on Romani Emapcipation |