Borderline Sicilia 2019: networking, socio-legal support, and reporting violations of rights

Over the course of the year that has just come to a close, we supported dozens of migrant men, women, and children against expulsions, illegitimate transfers, denial of protections, rejections of renewal and conversion of residence permits, and abuse on the part of the institutions.

Among these people are many vulnerable individuals who have not received the adequate medical care or psychological support for their physical and mental conditions from the managing bodies of the centers, whom we have attended to with the support of the association Doctors for Human Rights (Me.d.u.).

In 2019, the situation for vulnerable migrants in Sicily was made even worse by the cuts to dedicated services that were enacted by the new security decree, which blocked access to reception at the Sprar/Siproimi* centers for all vulnerable persons lacking international protection. Rendering it all the more difficult to assist vulnerable subjects in the provincial territories is the lack of services and of trained staff to identify the victims of torture or inhumane and degrading treatment.

Once in Italy, within the hotspots and CAS*, injuries continue to be inflicted on migrants who survived in the Libyan hell and in the voyage at sea, as they are forced to live in shameful conditions without the assistance they need.

In this context, we cannot be silent about the treatment reserved for so-called smugglers by force or necessity. Throughout 2019 we continued to follow dozens of migrants accused of aiding illegal immigration, many very young, who were guilty of no more than having led the boat that brought them to Italian waters, under the threat of Libyan traffickers or driven by survival instinct.

The wounds inflicted by the Italian system do not even spare the relatives of shipwreck victims, who all too often are denied the recovery and identification of the bodies of loved ones. But thanks to the Tunisian association Terres pour Tous, in collaboration with the Italian associations Borderline Sicilia, LasciateCIEntrare, Rete Antirazzista Catanese, and Carovane Migranti, in December 2019 four Tunisian women were heard by the Prosecutor of the Republic of Agrigento to obtain recognition of their children, who perished in the shipwreck at Lampedusa on October 7th.

Security Decrees and the Acts of Awareness and Denunciation

2019 was another year of “war” on NGOs as well as the repeated strong arming with which the former Interior Minister used women, men, and children, held for days on board humanitarian ships, as a tool for internal propaganda and political pressure on the institutions of the European Union.

Furthermore, our work in the area has permitted us to observe the consequences of the security decrees, in particular the abolition of humanitarian protection.

In the course of 2019, we supported several people who were victims of the sale of false contracts. Many migrants – some of whom had already spent years on Italian territory – being unable to renew their residence permit for the same reasons for which they had been granted humanitarian protection, wound up in the hands of scammers who, upon payment of lavish sums, promised contracted work that would be useful in obtaining the conversion of the residence permit. The sale of contracts of employment and of residence, of fake passports and the labor exploitation of migrants are dynamics that have always existed and that we have denounced for years. These phenomena are amplified and multiplied by regulations such as those introduced by the security decree which actually increase the number of irregular and invisible people.

In addition, we have given legal support to various asylum seekers to register them and issue identity cards, which are necessary in order to access assistance services.

Our response to the direct effects of the immigration policies of the last recent years has been, in the first place, intensive deployment of information and training directed at migrants, at sector associations, and at public opinion, through organizations and participation at conferences, round tables, seminars, and workshops.

Monitoring the Sicilian region

Parallel to the programs of orientation and legal support, and of those of information and training, likewise throughout 2019 we continued to witness the illegitimate practices put in place by both institutional and non-institutional actors, in order to present an accurate picture of immigration in Sicily and to denounce the inhospitality and violations of migrants’ rights.

Rescue Ships

2019 was also the year of the “closure of the ports.” We’ve supported the operations of the rescue boats Sea Watch, Iuventa and Mare Ionio, but also of the Italian Coast Guard. In particular, we’ve denounced (along with Rete Antirazzista Catanese and the Catholic association Punto Pace Pax Christi of Catania) the lack of ministerial authorization upon entrance to Sea Watch 3 following the rescue made at sea on January 19th, 2019, as well as the inhumane and degrading treatment of shipwrecked people restrained on board for several weeks.

Together with the NGO Sea Watch we have produced a video of solidarity with their seized ship denouncing the lack of rescue ships in the Mediterranean.

As in the prior case of the ship Diciotti, in the case of the Coast Guard ship “Gregoretti” too we denounced the ministerial refusal to let migrants disembark.

CARA* of Mineo

2019 was also the year of the closure of the CARA of Mineo. We monitored “Il residence degli Aranci” since its opening in 2011, denouncing systematic shortcomings and the continuous abuse of asylum seekers’ rights. From January to July 2019, pending its scheduled closure, dozens of forced removals of guests from the government center were carried out weekly, for which we provided legal and social support together with Rete Antirazzista Catanese.

Hundreds of people were still present in the structure on the day of its closure, many of whom had been held there illegally for different reasons. Most of them, thanks to the intervention of Me.d.u, were received by a convent in the province of Catania by the local Christian community, which asked for our legal assistance and our intervention in referring people, many of them quite vulnerable, to local services.

Campobello di Mazara

Throughout the year that has just drawn to a close, we continued, together with the activists of NOCAP, the monitoring of conditions for seasonal workers forced to live in inhumane and abusive conditions in the slums of the ghetto of Campobello di Mazara (TP), lacking adequate medical assistance in a state of exploitation and total social abandonment and at the mercy of the corporals.

Although we have spent years denouncing the situation for thousands of farm workers exploited for the olive harvest – underpaid and with fictitious work contracts – not even the participation in the round tables that followed one another over time has led to any changes. The only result has been that this year, the institutions have excluded the associations from the meetings.

In October we decried the presence of young girls being held as prostitutes, enslaved by the trafficking network that runs from Palermo and Trapani to the countryside and has found the ideal site for the business to flourish in the former cement factory of Campobello.

Redistributions and Hotspots

The policy of the “closed ports”, ushered in by Salvini, has generated a struggle between the Italian minister of the interior and the ministers of other involved countries on the issue of redistribution of migrants rescued at sea.

With the pre-agreement of Malta, signed by minister of the interior Lamorgese with Germany, France, and Malta, the humanitarian discretionary clause contained in article 17 of the Dublin Regulation – which provides that a member state can take charge of evaluating the asylum request of a third-country national – is automatically and systematically applied to all cases of rescue at sea. The arbitrary nature of this clause is indicated by the lack of direction regarding its method of implementation, which is generally through pre-selective interviews that recall an interrogation aimed solely at determining the “western-ness” of the interviewee, rather than usefully evaluating candidates’ personal stories, forcing them to remain in hotspots for up to six months.

In the course of 2019 we maintained our focus on the conditions of asylum seekers within the Sicilian hotspots of Pozzallo and Messina, denouncing in particular – together with Asgi and Action Aid – the critical issues present at the center of Messina.

Advocacy in 2019

The operations of monitoring and research, carried out in collaboration with other organizations, has also resulted in the publication of various reports and press releases, with which we have continued our advocacy activities.

In February 2019, we published the report “The Italy-Libya Agreement: Check-mate on rights in four moves”, completed in collaboration with Oxfam Italia as part of the OpenEurope project and subsequently summarized in a contribution to the working section dedicated to violations on behalf of Italy organized by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human rights.

In June 2019, in collaboration with the with the Noureddine Adnane Anti-Discrimination Observatory and the Porco Rosso Club in Palermo, we published the dossier “The’good’ Sicilians – Report on Violence and Discrimination on the island”, a collection of the main episodes of racially motivated violence that occurred in Sicily during the first year of 5Stelle/Lega rule.

In August, with a report on the conditions of migrants stranded at the Tunisian-Libyan border, we denounced the fact that Tunisia cannot be considered a safe country for the terms of international protection, though this runs contrary to what is established in the security decree that defines the list of so-called safe countries.

Borderline Sicilia

Translation from Italian by Olivia Taibi

*Asgi: Associazione per gli Studi Giuridici sull’Immigrazione: Association for Judicial Study on Immigration
*CARA: Centro di accoglienza per richiedenti asilo – reception centre for asylum seekers
*CAS: Centro di Accoglienza Straordinaria – extraordinary reception centre
*Sprar/Siproimi: Sistema di protezione per rifugiati e richiedenti asilo – system of protection for asyulm seekers and refugees, communal reception system on a voluntary basis