Romani people in Portugal

The Romani people in Portugal are known by non-Romani ethnic Portuguese as ciganos (Portuguese pronunciation: [siˈɣɐnuʃ]), but are also alternatively known as calés, calós, and boémios.

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As implied by some of their most common local names, the native Portuguese Romani belong to the Iberian Kale (Kalos) group, like most of the fellow Lusophone Brazilian ciganos, and the Spanish Romani people, known as gitanos, that share their same ethnic group. Their presence in the country in and around the state of minho goes back to the second half of the 15th century when they crossed the border from neighbouring Spain. Early on, due to their sociocultural differences, race and nomadic lifestyle, the ciganos were the object of fierce discrimination and persecution.[1]

The number of Romani people in Portugal is difficult to estimate, since it is forbidden to collect statistics about race or ethnic categories in the country. According to data from Council of Europe's European Commission against Racism and Intolerance[2] there are about 40,000 to 50,000 spread all over the country.[3] According to the Portuguese branch of Amnesty International, there are about 30,000 to 50,000.[4]

After the first Romani arrived in Portugal in the turn of the 15th to the 16th century and over the following centuries there were several laws passed marginalizing the ciganos. From the early 16th century until the early 19th century, they were forbidden from entering and expelled from the country, forced into exile in the colonies, used as forced labour in the sailing ships and forbidden from using their language and traditional attire and from performing fortune telling:[5][6][7]

Only with the Liberal Constitution of 1822 were the Romani recognised as Portuguese citizens. From 1920 to 1985, the statute of the Portuguese gendarmerie (Guarda Nacional Republicana) determined that this military force should carry out special monitoring of the gypsy communities. Since 1985, the statute reads "nomads" instead of "gypsies" to avoid accusations of discrimination based on ethnicity.[5]

In the last decade, a few governmental programmes to promote gypsy integration were launched, starting in 2013, when the Government passed the National Strategy for the Integration of the Gypsy Communities.[5]

Notable individuals

References
  1. (in Portuguese) Joel Serrão, Ciganos, in Dicionário de História de Portugal, Lisboa, 2006.
  2. (in Portuguese) ECRI (2002), Relatório da Comissão Europeia contra o Racismo e a Intolerância - Segundo Relatório sobre Portugal, Estrasburgo, p. 23 (In Portuguese). Archived 2008-12-18 at the Wayback Machine
  3. (in Portuguese) "Comissão critica Portugal por discriminar ciganos" in Diário de Notícias, 13/02/2007 Archived 2009-01-14 at the Wayback Machine
  4. As reported by the newspaper Público on April 7, 2010 "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-10-01. Retrieved 2010-04-07.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link).
  5. Pereira, Ana Cristina (10 Feb 2019). "Os ciganos portugueses começam a "sair da clandestinidade"" [The Portuguese Gypsies are starting to “come out of hiding”] (in Portuguese). Público. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  6. Mendonça, Manuela (19 Dec 2011). "Uma breve história sobre o povo cigano" [A short history of the Gypsy people]. Secretariado Diocesano de Lisboa da Obra Nacional da Pastoral dos Ciganos (in Portuguese). Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  7. "Portugal: 500 anos a tentar expulsar os ciganos com deportações para África e Brasil" [Portugal: 500 years trying to send the Gypsies to exile in Africa and Brazil] (in Portuguese). Vortex Magazine. 17 Nov 2017. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
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