KNOW NOW:
Jordan's Nomadic Dom
Urbanized and Abandoned
This is Amman, one of the city’s many rambling and decrepit areas where poor Jordanians share space with millions of other indigent residents. There are the Palestinians who fled Israel, the Iraqis and Syrians who poured in from wars next door, the Africans drawn by Jordan’s open door to refugees. And there are increasing numbers of Dom. Largely unknown, the minority lives on society’s edge in almost every country of the region. Along with their northern kin, the Roma, historians agree the Dom trace their roots back to the Punjab’s castes of migrating artisans and entertainers who left the subcontinent some 800 years ago. Once they reached Persia, the Roma went on to Europe and the Dom continued deep into the Middle East, forever stuck at the intersection of social stigmatization, poverty, and political instability.
Dom families have been here since Jordan was founded, their encampments the only sign of life along otherwise barren desert-scape. The caravans are all but gone, those tending livestock are increasingly rare and Dom everywhere scramble for water, food and power sources. Regional wars, violence, and destitution forced many clans to break up. Most have gone urban: their largely nomadic lifestyle has given way to life in small, substandard structures on the blighted outskirts of cities and towns. Some cling to tent life, scraping to pay rent for a small area, wedged in between buildings, or in an open, abandoned lot. Their lives are hardly stable, or secure. It is a rare national host that affords them what the general citizenry enjoys: energy, water, schooling, sanitation, healthcare, and police protection.
In Jordan, as elsewhere, Dom are marginalized, left to fend for their own communities. United Nations Camps often turn them away for inadequate personal documentation. School teachers complain they are class bullies, unruly, and dishonest. Public disdain for the minority is so profound, Dom who do become professionals must hide their identity and “pass” for another ethnicity. This, while Dom youth do what kids do: they try to fit in. They want to lose what they call the Gypsy dress, the Domari speech, the markers of belonging to the group at the bottom.
So, the outlook is grim. Children drop out of school early. Boys train for carpentry and textile jobs that will go to Jordanians and other refugees, first. And this child, found playing on the steps, will likely marry in a couple of years. Dom girls become brides by age 15, caring for their own babies before growing up themselves. They will try to stay with their clan, for support. But social pressures and urbanization mean Dom are detached from their own customs, endangering their traditions and their language.
While refugee demands continue to surge here in Amman and throughout the country, the competition for resources leaves Jordan’s Dom at the end of the list. There is one group after them: the Syrian Dom, refugees who fled next door in search of a better life.
DO NOW:
Prejudice is so powerful against the Dom, it even puts humanitarian aid out of reach. The critical dearth of organizations and information focused on the plight of the Dom indicates they're not even on the radar of mainstream aid groups. Consider asking your go-to charities to support this diverse group by improving its living standards. Want to help a small minority in a big way? Read here to learn more about the Dom community and their needs.
Rural Dom children in Jordan, several hours from the nearest city.