UN: Romania census should improve underrepresentation

Romania's upcoming census must seek to improve the underrepresentation of the Roma minority in national statistics, the head of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in the country said Monday. "This time, the census has to be different and improve the underrepresentation of different ethnic groups in Romania. For everybody to count, everybody has to be counted", François Farah told a press conference in Bucharest. "We support the public campaigns in and with the Roma community" to encourage them to take part in the census, he added. Romania is to hold a national census in October, the first since joining the European Union in 2007. One of the major challenges will consist in convincing members of the Roma minority, one of the largest in Europe, to participate and to declare their origins, according to experts. According to the 2004 official census, Romania is home to 530,000 Roma. However, local NGOs say there are in fact about 2.5 million Roma, many of whom hide their origins for fear of discrimination. Their participation in the census is important "because it could have an impact on the European funds allocated for their social development", the head of the Romanian Statistical Institute, Vergil Voineagu, said.