Gypsy Child Thieves

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Culture, Sociopolitical Documentary hosted by Liviu Tipurita and published by BBC broadcasted as part of BBC This World series in 2009 - English narration

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This World - Gypsy Child Thieves. Across Europe children are being forced onto the streets to beg and steal. They come from one of the poorest communities in Europe - the Romanian Gypsies. For centuries Gypsies have lived on the margins of society and faced brutal discrimination. Many have resorted to stealing and begging to survive.

But in the last 20 years, organized crime has taken over. And since 2007, when Romania joined the EU, Gypsy children have been trafficked and exploited on a much larger scale. In an attempt to understand what is happening to these children Romanian film-maker Liviu Tipurita embarks on a journey through Europe which takes him inside the closed world of the Gypsy community, and talks to the authorities and institutions meant to be dealing with this disturbing phenomenon....

In Italy, where Gypsies face a shocking tide of racism, a major police investigation found enslaved children locked in a shack like animals. Two years on, Tipurita's investigation finds out that the elaborate police operation has not saved them from a life of crime.

In an attempt to trace the roots of the problem and the origins of this exploitation within the Gypsy community, Tipurita travels to his native Romania, home to the largest Gypsy population in the world.

He meets up with one of the most powerful leaders of the Gypsy underworld, for whom stealing is a profession that has been passed from generation to generation, and who provides a special insight into the history of Gypsy crime.

This World asks whether these children are the victims of a culture of crime and a wider society that seems to have abandoned them. And raises a question - will anyone save them from the hands of their exploiters?