Lívia Járóka (born 6 October 1974, in Tata) is a Hungarian politician. She is a Member of the European Parliament, first elected as part of the Fidesz list in 2004. Járóka is the second Romani (and the first Romani woman) ever elected to the European Parliament (after Juan de Dios Ramírez Heredia from Spain, who served from 1986 to 1999).[1]
Járóka grew up in Sopron, a town near Hungary's western border with Austria. Her father is ethnically Roma, her mother Hungarian. After getting an MA in sociology from the Warsaw campus of the Central European University on a scholarship from the Open Society Institute she went on to study anthropology in Britain, focusing on Romani issues and culture. In August 2003 she had a daughter and a son in 2007. In 2012 she finished her PhD in Social Anthropology at the University College London.[2]
Járóka has been criticized as an apologist for the treatment of Hungarian Roma by her party, Fidesz.[3] She has also declined to criticize Fidesz' campaign against George Soros,[4] and the party's attacks on her alma mater, the Central European University.[5]
Memberships
She is a member of the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality and the Delegation for Relations with South Africa. She is a substitute member of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, as well the Delegation for Relations with the Korean Peninsula.[6]
Prior Board Member of Open Society Institute, Roma Memorial University Scholarship Program
Research activities
September 2000-April 2002: Ethnographic field research on assimilation tendencies of Roma in Hungary
May 1998-May 2001: Sociological research among Roma students of Gandhi Gimnazium, Hungary
2000 - 2003 University College of London, PhD research on ethnic relations and economics, identity and radicalisation in cultural self-representation of the young Roma in the 8. District, an urban slum in Budapest
Awards
Elected Young Global Leader in 2006 by the Forum of Young Global Leaders and the World Economic Forum[12]
