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	80% of Roma are at risk of poverty, new survey finds by Fundamental Rights Agency, agencies European Union   Widespread deprivation is destroying Roma lives. Families are living excluded from society in shocking conditions, while children with little education face bleak prospects for the future, a new report from the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) shows.   The report analyses the gaps in Roma inclusion around the EU to guide Member States seeking to improve their integration policies.   “Our manifest inability in Europe to honour the human rights of our Roma communities is unacceptable. The levels of deprivation, marginalisation, and discrimination of Europe’s largest minority is a grave failure of law and policy in the EU and its Member States,” says FRA Director Michael O’Flaherty. “The publication of these findings provides an opportunity to galvanise policy makers into action and focus resources on redressing this intolerable situation.”   The Second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey: Roma – selected findings report shows that:   80% of Roma interviewed are at risk of poverty compared with an EU average of 17%. 30% live in households with no tap water and 46% have no indoor toilet, shower or bathroom. 30% of Roma children live in households where someone went to bed hungry at least once in the previous month.   53% of young Roma children attend early childhood education, often less than half the proportion of children their age from the general population in the same country.   Only 30% of the Roma surveyed are in paid work, compared with the average EU employment rate for 2015 of 70%. 41% of Roma feel they have been discriminated against over the past 5 years in everyday situations such as looking for work, at work, housing, health and education. 82% of Roma are unaware of organisations offering support to victims of discrimination.   The survey findings indicate that despite Member States’ efforts, they are still falling short of most of their integration targets, a key element of the EU’s 2011 National Roma Integration Strategies Framework.   The results underline the need for: early childhood learning support and integrated schooling; better employment opportunities and greater social protection to eradicate poverty; targeted education and training to specifically help Roma youths and Roma women in their transition from primary to secondary education, and thereafter find work.   The report is based on a survey that collected information in nine EU Member States, derived from nearly 8,000 face-to-face interviews with Roma: http://bit.ly/2fLD7wi   Nov. 2016   Migrant hate widespread, reveals Fundamental Rights Agency report   Arson attacks, violence, even murder, and everyday harassment are just some of the worrying hate crime incidents flagged in the latest summary report of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) on migration-related fundamental rights in selected EU Member States. It points to tension and hostility towards migrants and asylum seekers, underscoring the need for concerted EU and Member State action in line with fundamental rights.   The report identifies serious and widespread incidents of violence, harassment, threats and hate speech towards migrants and asylum seekers, and their children, across 14 EU Member States. Human rights advocates, ‘pro-refugee’ politicians and journalists have also been targeted.   It points to some of the perceived perpetrators, and highlights the problem of under-reporting and under-recording of hate crime which impedes efforts to find effective responses.   Some of the main findings include:   Most Member States do not collect or publish statistical data on hate crime incidents against asylum seekers and migrants; civil society often are the main sources of information. Vigilantes and the general public are often behind the attacks.   Offline and online hate speech, including by public figures who sometimes even condone attacks, is fuelling open intolerance.   This intolerance is spilling over to other parts of society with Muslims, especially women, and people from ethnic backgrounds, particularly targeted.   Asylum seekers and migrants rarely report hate crimes to authorities or other organisations for a number of reasons. These include: a lack of trust in the police and public authorities; fear of arrest, being deported or of retaliation; a belief that nothing will change; and language barriers. Under-reporting also leads to the issue being buried.   State responses to hate crime against asylum seekers and migrants are perceived as weak by civil society in many Member States. Victim support services that meet the needs of asylum seekers and migrants are rare. Asylum seekers and migrants also have limited access to existing support.   EU laws offer protection to victims and the Agency has compiled information about various initiatives that tackle hate crime in the EU. However, Member States lack the robust data they need to prevent hate crime, and protect and promote the rights of migrants and asylum seekers in an increasingly openly intolerant Europe.   The European Commission asked the Agency to collect data about the fundamental rights situation of people arriving in Member States, particularly affected by large migration movements.   As of this month, the reports cover the situation in 14 Member States: Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden.   http://fra.europa.eu/en/theme/hate-crime   * The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and and 77 other civil society organizations and UN agencies called today on the EU institutions and Member States to do more to protect the rights of refugee and migrant children. The call came in a statement released to mark the opening of the 10th European Forum on the Rights of the Child in Brussels: http://bit.ly/2gflZCH   * Harvard University’s Center for Health and Human Rights finds that protection for children on the move, particularly during time of transit, is lacking worldwide: http://bit.ly/2gmIsOm Visit the related web page
	Babies for Sale by Al Jazeera 101 East Malaysia   Dressed in a white jumpsuit, mittens and socks, the baby girl lay quietly in the Malaysian heat.   "I picked her up and she smiled," said Hartini Zainudin, recalling the hot Saturday morning that changed her life.   Hartini is well known in Malaysia as a child rights activist who rescues unwanted babies.   She thought this was another of those cases. But then the woman who had been caring for the baby at a house in the port town of Klang, about an hour''s drive from Kuala Lumpur, got down to business.   For $3,000, she said, Hartini could take the baby home immediately and raise her as her own.   "They said, ''You can buy her … or she''ll go to Thailand''," Hartini recalled.   She stepped outside and phoned a fellow activist, who told her that trafficking gangs sometimes maim young children before forcing them to beg in Thailand.   Hartini''s decision was instant. She walked back into the house and agreed to buy the little girl, another deal done in Malaysia''s lucrative underground baby trade.   An exclusive Al Jazeera investigation for 101 East has revealed that baby selling rackets are thriving in Malaysia.   A complex web of traffickers and doctors is turning the youngest, most vulnerable human lives into commodities, putting them up for sale to the highest bidder.   In this Southeast Asian nation, where legal adoption can take years, people are handing over thousands of dollars to baby sellers and turning to corrupt officials to help register the children they buy as their own.   A baby''s price can range from about $400 to $7,500, with their value determined by race, skin colour, gender and weight.   "The lighter skin, if a male, higher price. The darker skin, a girl, lower price. And then if you''re a mix, higher price. This is how it works," explained Hartini.   The babies offered for sale come from a variety of women. Some are poor migrant workers who, by law, are not allowed to have children in the country. Others come from Malaysian women, including some who are forced to give up their babies to avoid the stigma associated with having a child out of wedlock.   The buyers are often childless couples desperate to start a family and frustrated with the country''s convoluted adoption procedures. But activists say some babies are bought for more sinister purposes, sometimes by syndicates who groom children for paedophiles.   During a four-month undercover investigation, Al Jazeera discovered just how easy it is to find a baby to buy in Malaysia and to obtain the false documents required to change a baby''s identity.   Websites and social media pages offer numerous babies who are "in need of a loving home". The posts detail the baby''s due date, expected medical costs and the so-called "consolation fee" to be paid to the birth mother.   "You can choose your baby online," Hartini explained. "In a lot of the cataloging for baby selling, you''ll have Chinese, Malay … it''s like a supermarket.   Some of the people behind the social media posts advertising infants are in fact baby sellers.   After first making contact online, Al Jazeera''s team met a woman who called herself ''Bonda'', which means ''mother'' in Malay.   She claimed to be housing 78 pregnant Indonesian women at various locations across Malaysia.   She sent us a photo catalogue of pregnant women for potential buyers to choose from. It lists the women''s names, jobs and stages of pregnancy.   Bonda guaranteed that the birth mothers would not try to find their babies once they were sold.   "I have dealt with over 1,000 Indonesians with no problems," she said. "They never ask where their children go after giving them up."   It would cost up to $2,500 to buy a baby and the falsified birth documents, Bonda explained. But she quickly offered to reduce the price to $1,500 to close the deal.   * Access more from this 101 Asia interactive feature via the link below. Visit the related web page
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