Romani people in Portugal


The Romani people in Portugal are known by non-Romani ethnic Portuguese as ciganos, but are also alternatively known as calés, calós, and boémios.
As implied by some of their most common local names, the native Portuguese Romani belong to the Iberian Kale group, like most of the fellow Lusophone Brazilian Romani people in Brazil, 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.
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 there are about 40,000 to 50,000 spread all over the country. According to the Portuguese branch of Amnesty International, there are about 30,000 to 50,000.

Legal status

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:
Only with the Liberal Constitution of 1822 were the Romani recognised as Portuguese citizens.
From 1920 to 1985, the statute of the Portuguese gendarmerie 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.
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.

Notable individuals