Roma Communities in Portugal

The Roma communities belong to the more vulnerable categories of social exclusion in Portugal. The poor housing conditions, the low educational levels and vocational qualifications, and the difficulty in the access to most of the goods and services, health, employment, education and training, among other shortages, determine the life of such communities where poverty tends to last and to be transmitted from generation to generation.

Although the referred vulnerabilities are widely recognized, there are no data or indicators concerning the individuals belonging to such communities. In fact, quantitative data on the Roma population are difficult to obtain due, on one hand, to the inexistence of comprehensive studies regarding the census of the Portuguese population belonging to these communities and, on the other hand, because the State’s institutional sources which have the mechanisms to collect such information are not allowed, according to the Portuguese Constitution, to establish any type of census or register specifying the ethnic group, race our colour.

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