Roma in Lithuania:

According to the population and housing census of 2011, the country was inhabited by 2,115 Roma people. Since 1989, the number of Roma in the country has been gradually decreasing. Most Roma, 81 percent, live in urban areas. The largest communities are in the country’s capital Vilnius (38 percent of the total Roma population, or 814 persons), Kaunas (23 percent, or 482 persons), Šiauliai (11 percent, or 224 persons), Marijampolė (10 percent, or 214 persons), and Panevėžys (7 percent, or 145 persons) districts. Most Roma (93 percent) have Lithuanian citizenship, but there are also Roma with Russian citizenship (2.3 percent), and the rest (2.6 percent) have other or no citizenship.

As the population of Roma in Lithuania is rather small, this fact was often used to justify the lack of measures taken by the authorities to improve the acute situation of this community. The lack of political will, combined with the well-rooted stereotypes and scope-goat attitude applied to the community led to the worsening of the situation in the fields of education, housing, and employment. After Lithuania joined the EU, and especially later with the adoption of the Communication on the National Roma Integration Strategies (NRIS) by the European Commission in 2011, the question of improving the situation of Roma was put on the political agenda.

Key problems:

The main problems faced by the community are lack of adequate and accessible housing (especially acute in Vilnius), early school-drop outs and access to quality education for children, low levels of employment, and general negative attitude towards Roma by the majority of the population, resulting in a variety of problems ranging from the bad atmosphere in schools for the children to hate-crimes. As the population of Roma in Lithuania is rather small, this fact was often used to justify the lack of measures taken by the authorities to improve the acute situation of this community. The lack of political will combined with the well-rooted stereotypes and scapegoat attitude applied to the community led to the worsening of the situation in the fields of education, housing, and employment.

RCM Coordinator:

Roma Community Centre

RCM 2 (2021-2025) reports:

Roma Civil Monitor (2022) Civil society monitoring report on the quality of the national strategic framework for Roma equality, inclusion, and participation in Lithuania. ENGLISHLITHUANIAN

Poster presenting main findings of the report (2022):

RCM 1 (2017-2020) reports:

Roma Civil Monitor (2017) Civil society monitoring report on implementation of the national Roma integration strategies in Lithuania: Focusing on structural and horizontal preconditions for successful implementation of the strategyENGLISHLITHUANIAN

Roma Civil Monitor (2018) Civil society monitoring report on implementation of the national Roma integration strategy in Lithuania: Assessing the progress in four key policy areas of the strategy. ENGLISHLITHUANIAN

Roma Civil Monitor (2019) Civil society monitoring report on implementation of the national Roma integration strategy in Lithuania: Identifying blind spots in Roma inclusion policy ENGLISH LITHUANIAN

Roma Civil Monitor 2017-2020 country fiche: Lithuania