Archive: Society | Minorities Minorities
European Contact Group fighting for gender equality
Mum behind the wheel of a truck, while dad stays at home to look after the
children. While this concept might seem completely normal to most kids,
Czech children may still find the idea shocking, at least according to the
European Contact Group, a non-profit organization that promotes equal
opportunities for men and women. Within a broader effort to break that
stereotype they have produced special work sheets to help teachers in
kindergartens and primary schools address the issue.
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Aleš Rumpel, head of the Mezipatra Queer Film Festival
This autumn, the Mezipatra Queer Film Festival will celebrate 10 years of
showing gay and lesbian-themed films to the Czechs. The festival is held
between October 23 and November 8 in Brno, Prague and several other cities
around the country, under the motto “The Third World War of the Sexes”.
In this edition of One on One, our guest is the festival’s director Aleš
Rumpel who explains what the main focus of this year’s Mezipatra is.
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“Golden Barb” award highlights failures in integration of foreigners
The Golden Barb is the name of an award that the Prague-based NGO Centre
for Integration of Foreigners hands out for the worst contribution to the
field of integration of foreigners. It also gives out the Naděžda prize
for the best practice or policy in the field. This year’s awards were
presented on Thursday evening. Jan Richter spoke to the centre’s
Vladislav Gunther after the ceremony.
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NGOs call for action in the face of persisting discrimination of Romany children in schools
Two years after a breakthrough verdict by the European Court for Human
Rights which denounced racial segregation in Czech schools, Romany children
still face widespread discrimination. That’s the conclusion of a group of
Czech NGOs that say the Czech Education Ministry has shown good will but
has introduced few practical measures to improve the situation.
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Four charged with racially motivated attempted murder over petrol bomb attack on Romany family’s home
In April this year many in the Czech Republic were horrified by a petrol
bomb attack on a Romany family’s home that left a two-year-old girl
fighting for her life. Now, four months later, police in north Moravia
have
made a major breakthrough in the case, charging four men with racially
motivated attempted murder. More
Cambridge University study suggests gender pay gap in the Czech Republic much bigger than average
When it comes to equal pay, the Czech Republic is floundering far below
average, suggests research conducted by the University of Cambridge. A
report into employment and pay in 10 European countries found that while
Czech women worked in more or less the same jobs as Czech men, they were
very far from enjoying the same wages. A little earlier, I spoke to the
report’s author Dr Robert Blackburn to ask him about this new research:
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Paper claims foreigners could be working as virtual slaves in Czech Republic
Could tens of thousands of foreign migrants be working in almost slave-like
conditions in the Czech Republic? That’s the conclusion of an in-depth
investigation by the newspaper Lidové Noviny, which features the story on
its front page today. The paper says the global financial crisis has made
it even easier for unscrupulous “agencies” to exploit thousands of
workers from countries such as Ukraine, Mongolia and Vietnam – using
coercion and even physical violence to enslave their victims, many of whom
are deeply in debt to their traffickers. We spoke to Irena Konečná,
co-ordinator of La Strada Czech Republic, which deals with the problem.
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Final journey of Romani prince stirs new debate on Czech “xenophobia”
There was a sad end to the story of a Romani “prince” from Romania on
Monday when the 17-year-old boy died at Prague’s Vinohrady hospital. The
boy – heir to the ‘throne’ of a Romani Olach clan – spent two weeks
on a life support machine after almost drowning in a lake near Prague.
Czech officials seemed at a loss on how to deal with the dozens of
relatives who descended on Prague to be near him, and there’s now some
confusion over who will pay for his body to be returned to his homeland.
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Prague hospital becomes focus for Romanian Roma vigil
Prague has become the focus of attention for hundreds of Romanians as they
follow the fight for life of a 17-year old boy. Many have travelled to the
Czech capital to be nearer the hospital where he is being cared for and
have set up camp at sites around the city.
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Why did so many Czech Roma apply for asylum in Canada?
Two weeks ago Ottawa imposed visa restrictions on Czechs after more than
1,700 Czech Roma, or gypsies, sought refugee status in Canada in the first
six months of this year. That was a huge increase on the 650 or so in the
whole of 2008, which was already a high figure. So, what led so many Czech
Romanies to apply for asylum in Canada? More
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