Some 100,000 Roma live in rural settlements on the margins of villages inhabited by ethnic Slovaks. The conditions in these two types of communities differ sharply. Unlike the villagers who occupy spacious homes equipped with modern amenities and surrounded by gardens and fields, the Roma are typically squatters confined to crowded and marginal areas situated at some distance from schools, stores and municipal services. Here they dwell in run-down apartment buildings left over from the socialist era, and primitive huts slapped together from mud bricks and scavenged materials.

Although most Romani settlements contravene a vast range of Slovak and EU standards related to housing and public health, few municipal authorities try to change the deplorable living conditions of their Romani constituents. The 'Gypsy question' is not popular with White voters, and local, regional and national politics reflect that. Svinia provides a textbook example of what happens to politicians who attempt to change the status quo. Here, a progressive mayor and council participated in the implementation of a community development project that envisioned the provision of new housing for all local Roma. In spite of financial and political support from the national government, the European Union, the Canadian International Development Agency, and several influential NGOs, the 2002 municipal elections swept the Roma-friendly administration from power and installed a reactionary council which quashed the Svinia Project and relegated the Roma to the bottom of political priorities.

For the vast majority of rural Roma, the settlement constitutes a destiny which very few can escape. Urban migration, a phenomenon that saw thousands leave the inhospitable countryside during the socialist era, has become increasingly difficult thanks to rising housing costs and attempts by many city councils to bar Roma from commercially lucrative districts. The purchase of homes in neighbouring villages is problematic because of financial constraints and resistance of White residents. The sale of 'White property' to a Romani buyer is considered so heinous an act that its perpetrator faces automatic loss of status in the community.

Just how entrenched the informal apartheid system is can be gleaned from the Slovak experience of Habitat For Humanity, the world's largest builder of affordable homes. In 1999, HFH set up its Slovak headquarters in Svinia in order to help construct between twenty and thirty new homes. Confronted by a hostile White establishment, the organization pulled out four years later without any visible accomplishment.

Although nominally full-fledged Slovak and EU citizens, the residential segregation imposed upon rural Roma seriously curtails their ability to participate in all realms of life.