When it comes to regularisation of immigrants’ stay in a country, Italian Governments in the past two decades needs a pat on the back.
It’s the only country in Europe that for five times has allowed illegal immigrants to regularise their stay by having the requisite documents to stay in the country.
The number of times is more if one considers the law (Flussi Law) that allows foreign nationals into the country to come and work for definite or indefinite period.
But against the backcloth of these documentations and possibility to stay as legal residents, what has changed in the life of the immigrant in Italy, to what extent has Italians accepted integration of foreign nationals and what was the government’s intention of giving staying permits to illegal resident, in the latter considering that Italy has the lowest birth rate in Europe? – the fact is there are more oldies than youths in the streets.
It takes an awful lot of time for changes to be made in Italy, good ideas can be propounded but before it could be implemented a whole generation might have passed away. Italy’s State laws governing its nationals have not changed much over the past half a century but laws on immigrants is given so much twists and turns and before the foreigner could understand what it’s all meant another revised version is thrown in which has to be continued to be grabbled with.
There is no denying fact that 90% or more of the immigrant population in Italy are engaged in either working as factory hands or doing a cleaning job and despite continuous programmes and projects no concrete measures have been taken to address their plight.
What do we see? Unskilled jobs, searching for accommodation with rents at incredible prices, most of which landlords under declare the rent and pay less tax with the authorities looking the other way, then there is the endless list of documents to apply for whatever documents the immigrant needs, and the long queues to submit these documents. The queues are so long by the time people reach the counter they look like their passport photos, knackered, not to talk of the unbearable weather conditions they sometimes have to endure outside the office. If people begins to queue outside an office at 2 a.m that opens at 8 am that tells you more.
The rigid and sometimes ambiguous Italian laws for immigrants has not made it possible to see a foreign national in the driving seat of a public transport – train, bus, or taxi – and it’s a tall order trying to get a job in its government institution, it looks like jobs reserved exclusively for only its citizens, call it ‘the Italian Job’, forget about it even if you’re good in the language with an educational background.
And as if that’s not enough, the degree of respect and recognition of the immigrant in Italy falls when you are an European, Asian, South American or for that matter with a white skin through to immigrants from North Africa. Coming south of the Sahara or with a black skin puts you last on the list of classification and sometimes being treated like the most contemptible social outcast. As an African coming south of the Sahara I have had experiences with people choosing seats away from me in a restaurant, train, bus – many in this category have faced similar treatments - they only seat beside you if there are no other options, for whatever that goes on in their minds about the black man they look at you as if they’re seeing a polar bear in a desert and in a country where one begins to hold on tightly on to her hand bag seeing an African behind in a queue that becomes too much for comfort to the black African.
An immigrant woman told me for 15 years she worked with an Italian establishment, her working colleagues (Italians) could not come to terms and accept she has the mentality and capability to reason like them despite that she is better on the job than most of them. Another African parent said her teenage son and other foreign nationals in his school are being asked to choose certain subjects selected by the school, subjects she says are inferior which would not enable them achieve their objectives in the future. An indication there is no end in sight of the factory and cleaning work which is going to move on to the next generation of immigrants in Italy.
To the xenophobic Italian employer the only interest is about money, more money and making profit at the expense of the poor immigrant workers, who in most cases are ignorant about the laws that relates to their course. They don’t give a hoot if the immigrant would even work till he drops placing the African where the job is more difficult and heavy in the factory.
A case in point was when one Ghanaian worker collapsed on his job and later died in hospital. At the time when friends and sympathisers have gathered in his home mourning, his ‘capo’ (employer) was asking them if they can get him someone amongst them to take the place of the dead friend on his job. Another Ghanaian instantly lost his life on the job when he was carelessly hit by a fork-lift in a factory against a fixed post. Though his house was just 2 kilometers from the work site his wife was informed of the incident 7 hours later, before the police arrived at the scene, all vital evidences have been wiped out. No punitive measures was taken against the company. Their explanation of what killed the Ghanaian was way off what actually took place, according to sources.
Similar cases play out in many parts of the country on immigrants. I have witnessed a scene where a Nigerian immigrant in Italy died under mysterious circumstances.
What happened? He was rushed to hospital and when his sister came to visit she was asked by medical staffs to sign a document to donate his organs, the explanation was the brother is not going to make it, she bluntly refused. Within weeks the patient was transferred from one hospital to another and the sister and acquaintances were only informed of his death two weeks after he died. The reason? Hospital authorities claimed they could not trace the sister or his associates contact number. When they eventually came to take the corpse for burial, eventually finishing up in another town 60 kilometres away, the casket which was traced to the morgue was already covered and sealed, they have not been asked to pay for any costs. Their persistent efforts to have the coffin opened to identify the body was refused by mortuary personnel which later led to chaos and intervention by the police who also went on to convince friends and the sister to take the body away for burial and the case looked into later. When the comrades proved unyielding and finally got the coffin opened there was a half-naked body of their man partially covered with a hospital bedsheet. His chest and abdomen have been stitched like a bag of corn. What I saw of the corpse in graphic details was too sad to be written here. In short it showed how a human being can be degraded perhaps for the mere color of the skin.
Something sinister might have happened which led to the poor man’s death and his colleagues believed some body parts might have been taken. The matter ended despite my efforts to have the story published in one magazine for the Nigerian community in Italy.
There was another case when doctors forcefully asked the wife of a Ghanaian in the city of Parma who is in a coma to sign documents to have the heart and other organs removed. Here again the explanation was he’s not going to survive. The wife and church leaders refused and when doctors could not have their way they point blank told them to go to the morgue the next day.
Truly, they found the dead body of their colleague at the mortuary the following morning. Here again no one took the matter up despite efforts to make the story hit news-stand.
One slap from the Italian government into the face of immigrants was last year when the government perhaps in an effort to solve the country’s dwindling low birth rate made a law to help every parent who delivers a child after 2005 with an amount of €1,000 (I wonder if that will solve all their financial clouts). Immigrants in the country with the requisite staying documents working and paying taxes who fell into this category made a dash for the money but after months they were dealt a severe jolt by being asked to refund the money with interest since according the authorities the law refers to ONLY Italian citizens.
So upon what basis were they paid the money in the first place? You may ask.
You may argue all these out to be a racism factor but under the racism card those accused of the discrimination, envy and hatred deny it whilst those who make these charges of inhuman treatments maintain they are in it but there is nothing more agonizing in it all than being at the receiving end.
Migration of people have been in existence for ages where they leave their country to another land for variety of reasons, many countries have been through it, including Italy.
It does seem a greater population of Italians have not come to terms why immigrants should come to their country or they are ill informed about what happens elsewhere apart from where they live.
It must be clearly underlined immigrants in Italy are contributing to the economy, most of them are engaged in jobs that the Italian will not put a hand in, whilst at the same time they are helping some unfortunate souls back home in their country of origin.
They are not in Italy ONLY to be considered as factory hands or cleaning pensioners, put it mildly senior citizens, and given the possibility they can equally be good on the ‘Italian Job’ as driving a public transport, work in the bank, as doctors, lawyers or whatever the Italian is capable. This is integration and they deserve more recognition than being treated like in a cattle market.
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