Ethnic minority communities struggle to break a cycle of poverty in Kosovo

In a desolate corner on the outskirts of Pristina, Kosovo, two men sit on the bare ground, mending a bicycle that is a lifeline for their families.

Without their bicycles they could not earn the money they need to keep their large families alive. And what they earn is little enough because their days are spent sifting through the city’s garbage for what others throw away.

“We work in the garbage containers, collecting tin cans, copper, scrap metal, aluminium, whatever we can find,” Besnik Hasanik says with a sad, gap-toothed smile. “Sometimes I can’t find anything because I’m not the only one who’s looking,” he adds.

A marginalized life

Mr. Hasanik is one of at least 30,000 people who identify themselves as belonging to the Roma, Ashkali or Egyptian ethnic groups – Kosovo’s most impoverished communities. They live on the fringes of society, often without the identity papers that would entitle them to the benefits available to other citizens: social welfare, unemployment, even schooling.

In the cramped family compound where Mr. Hasanik and his brother support an extended family of 19 in three small shacks, an oven built against one wall belches black smoke as the family’s bread is baked. The fire is being fed with old shoes and sneakers that Besnik and his brother have found in garbage containers that line the streets of Pristina outside its many apartment blocks.

When half a dozen toddlers sit down to lunch on the ground, they dip the home-baked bread in ketchup that has been scraped from the bottom of containers discarded by wealthier citizens.

“What can I say?” says Mr. Hasanik. “The living is bad. We all know it does have a [bad] impact on our health and we may get illnesses and diseases. But without having any other means to buy food, it’s our only option.”

Lack of documentation

As Kosovo rebuilds after years of conflict that led to a declaration of independence from Serbia, too many members of these marginalized communities do not know how to go about getting the birth certificates and citizenship papers they need.

“The problems are many because if the children aren’t registered, they can’t go to school. And within a few years those children will grow up, get married, establish their own families – and then they won’t have documents for their children, who can’t be registered either,” says social worker Barjam Marolli.

The acting head of UNICEF in Kosovo, Tania Goldner, calls it a “vicious circle of poverty.”

Continued at: UNICEF