Glitter and glamour. Big dresses. Huge parties and enormous families. Those are probably the things that come first to your mind when you think about gypsies and travellers. And that is true, but only for a really small part. Marrying young and having a crazy celebration aren’t a secret to us anymore. We think we know a lot about traveller culture because we watched shows like ‘my big fat gypsy wedding’. There is just one problem. This lifestyle isn’t the life most gypsies lead. Most of the time the life of gypsies and travellers, especially children, is the complete opposite. Unlike what sensation television wants us to believe, most gypsies live a rather poor life.
The documentary listed below shows the real life of Romanian travellers in Madrid, Spain. The host follows the gypsy children for weeks. He goes to their camp regularly and tries to find the truth deep beneath all misperceptions. As he interviews more and more people it gets clearer and clearer, even though they let him in, he isn’t really welcome in their life. The life the mostly consists of criminality, stealing and scamming. Parents send their kids to the city centre to rob and steal as much money as they possibly can. Most of those children are under fourteen. Just because the police can’t punish them at such a young age.
The children are send by their parents, but they choose to steal instead of beg. That way they make more money in less time. Young boys and girls aren’t afraid of anything. They will try to rob men twice their seize without fear. They know if they get caught they will only be taken to a centre and are on the streets again within a couple of hours. The centre they’re taken to by the police is open, the kids can come and go as they wish.
Even though the gypsy and traveller children are often neglected. One of the worst things are the girls who get sold as a bride at ages as young as twelve. Fathers get more for their daughters if they are a virgin and a great thief. We should try to stop this. The problem is we can’t. There are so many children in this situation, we have to take drastic matters. But travellers and gypsies are with so many, we don’t have enough power to control them. The gypsies and travellers most of the time don’t want to acknowledge what is happening in their camps.
Recourses: documentary, gypsy wedding
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