INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS social marginality, obstacles to access to healthcare and basic needs for migrants, asylum seekers and refugees SECOND EDITION FUORI CAMPO 1 TABLE INTRODUCTION 1 INTRODUCTION OF CONTENTS RECEPTION SYSTEM AND BORDERS 3 SOCIAL MARGINALIZATION 6 OCCUPIED BUILDINGS 8 FORCED EVICTIONS 10 his report is the follow up of and refugees in informal settlements, healthcare and psychological support the research contained in Fuori regardless of their legal status, was set up in the disused buildings OBSTACLES TO ACCESS THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE 12 Tcampo - Asylum seekers and have less and less opportunities to where men, women and children live refugees in Italy: unofficial settlements access medical treatment. Hospital in disgraceful conditions. THE BORDERS AT COMO AND VENTIMIGLIA 14 and social marginalisation1. It is emergency services are fast becoming THE DEADLY BORDER 17 the result of constant monitoring the only gateway to the Italian In Bari and Torino, MSF has worked activities carried out in 2016 and 2017 National Health System. in buildings occupied by migrants THE BRENNER ROUTE AND TRENTINO ALTO ADIGE 18 by way of repeated field visits and and refugees, seeking to overcome In the last two years, more than their marginalisation by facilitating FRIULI-VENEZIA GIULIA 20 in collaboration with an extensive network of local associations. twenty people have died attempting access to the National Health TURIN 22 to cross the borders with France, Service. MSF volunteers work The reception system for asylum Austria and Switzerland. Migrants alongside professionals in these ROME 24 seekers and refugees, expanding suffer repeated border rejection, activities, raising awareness on the PUGLIA 30 to reach just over 180,000 places often accompanied by violence. lack of access to healthcare that as of 31 December 2017, continues The number of people stranded at marginalised migrants and refugees CIVIL SOCIETY AND CRIMINALISATION OF SOLIDARITY 32 to be based, for the most part, on the borders and living in unofficial experience. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 34 extraordinary reception structures settlements is increasing, with limited in which services aimed at social access to basic needs and healthcare. MSF saw Italian citizens living in LIST OF INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS 36 inclusion are limited. informal settlements – as well as in Throughout Italy, volunteers and self-organised occupations – in Rome, MSF IN INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS 38 There are pockets marginalization activists are helping migrants as marginalised as their migrant MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRES IN ITALY 39 in urban and rural areas across excluded from the reception system, neighbours. This is not an isolated Italy. The raise in forced evictions, supporting them to access basic case in Italy. GLOSSARY 40 combined with a lack of alternative services and care. Opposition to their housing solutions, result in work has, in some cases, resulted in The report confirms the estimate the fragmentation of informal judicial proceedings against them. indicated in the first edition of Fuori settlements, especially in urban Campo: there are at least 10,000 contexts: migrants and refugees live In 2016 and 2017, Médecins Sans people excluded from the reception in increasingly hidden locations in a Frontières (MSF) strengthened its system, including holders and state of growing fear and frustration, commitment to supporting migrants applicants of international and with progressively limited contact in unofficial settlements. In Como humanitarian protection, with with local services, including and Ventimiglia, a psychological first- limited or no access to basic needs healthcare. aid programme was implemented and medical care2. The distribution of for people in transit, together with such settlements is fragmented and Due to administrative barriers, and a Women's healthcare programme widespread throughout the country. despite the laws in force, migrants in Ventimiglia. In Rome, primary First edition February 2018 1. Médecins Sans Frontières, April 2016. © Medici Senza Frontiere 2. This number refers to the sites monitored in the survey and cannot be considered www.msf.it a census of the total number of asylum seekers and refugees living in all the Front cover: informal settlements throughout Italy. © Alessandro Penso, Borgo Mezzanone (FG) All the photos are by A. Penso except p. 5 e 6: Giuseppe De Mola; p. 17 and 39: Giuseppe La Rosa FUORI CAMPO 2 3 1. Memorandum between Italy and Libya, signed on 2 February 2017. Cf. http://www.governo. it/sites/governoNEW.it/files/Libia.pdf RECEPTION SYSTEM AND BORDERS 2. Articulated in First Aid and Assistance Centres, First Reception Centres (formerly, CARA) and second reception centres of the SPRAR network to ordinary places and in After the peaks of 2016, 2017 saw an a first appeal5). To speed the asylum Extraordinary Reception Centres (CAS) to overall decrease in the number of be used only in cases of lack of ordinary process up, the government has places and only for limited periods of time, cf. landings – predominantly because of adopted a series of measures, such Legislative Decree no. 142/2015. containment measures implemented as establishing migration specialised 3. With the Decree from the Ministry of the following the agreement between sections within each ordinary court, Interior of 10 August 2016, the procedure Italy and Libya1 – and a parallel and abolishing the second level of to access the SPRAR projects has been increase in asylum applications. simplified. With the ‘safeguard clause’ appeal. This has led to doubts about contained in the Ministerial Directive The full implementation of the whether such lowering of the standards of 11 October 2016, the Municipalities “hotspot approach” resulted in the of legal protection for asylum seekers belonging to SPRAR are exempt from the forced registration of almost all of is constitutional, and has provoked activation of further forms of reception (CAS), whilst with the Circular issued in the migrants arriving in Italy. This criticism from associations in the August 2017, the Ministry of the Interior has contained the secondary movements sector6. provided instructions for the conversion of towards countries further North. the available places in the CAS in SPRAR Other factors are putting pressure ones. About 15% of the Municipalities in By 31 December 2017, the reception on the reception system. First is the Italy have joined to the SPRAR network. system2 had 183,681 places, a slight increasing number of asylum seekers 4. To date, 20 Territorial Commissions and increase compared to 2016. Despite of in other countries being sent back 28 additional sections are operational the government attempts to promote to Italy under the Dublin Regulation. for a total of 48 commissions. the model of the Protection System for Second is the failure of the relocation 5. ANCI, Caritas Italiana, Cittalia, Fondazione Migrantes, SPRAR in collaboration with Refugees and Asylum Seekers (SPRAR), procedure decided by the EU Council in UNHCR, Report on International Protection managed by the Municipalities3 September 2015 to transfer a number in Italy 2017. The percentage of denials on the number of asylum seekers and of asylum seekers from Italy and the number of asylum seekers who were Greece to other member States7. given accommodation was 57% in the first refugees in the SPRAR network stood half of 2017, inclusive of the 5% who were at 31,270 on the same date, just 17% of Current legislation envisages that a unreachable. With regard to the appellants the total. at first instance, 49.5% of the proceedings person gains access to the reception are still underway, whilst the remaining The chronic shortage of places in the system as soon as they apply for percentages of appeals accepted and reception centres, is due not only to asylum8. However, in practice (for rejected are equivalent. Amongst the appeals migrants who independently present presented to the Court of Appeal that have the increasing numbers of asylum received a definitive outcome (40%), seven applications, but also to the low themselves at police stations), access cases out of 10 were given protection. levels of turnover in the centres due to the system is postponed until 6. Cf. ASGI, Law no. 46 of 13 April 2017 to the time required for assessing the the asylum seekers formalise their containing proceedings on international applications. Despite the increase application by completing the C3 Form. protection, as well as for tackling illegal This results in applicants waiting for immigration. Initial interpretative in Territorial Commissions in recent reflections, https://www.asgi.it/ years4, the time elapsing between first weeks – and sometimes months – wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Scheda- applying for asylum and being notified without any form of assistance. This pratica-legge-Minniti-DEF_2.pdf of the result averages 307 days. In has been seen, for example, in police 7. 11,464 migrants have been relocated from the case of denial of protection and stations near large reception centres Italy before 31 December 2017 and 698 the lodging of an appeal, the time such as in Gorizia, Bari, Crotone and migrants are in the relocation process at Caltanissetta. present (Source: Ministry of the Interior). spent in the centres can increase to a 8. Legislative Decree no. 142/2015, Article 1.2. further 10 months (the average time EU Directive 2013/33 establishes required to achieve an outcome after the possibility to revoke the asylum 200,000 180,000 160,000 140,000 120,000 200,000 100,000 150,000 80,000 100,000 60,000 50,000 40,000 0 20,000 2012 2013 2014 0 2015 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2016 2017 First reception + LANDINGS 13,267 42,925 170,100 153,842 181,436 119,310 extraordinary places 26,500 35,562 76,683 153,602 152,411 ASYLUM 17,352 26,620 64,886 83,970 123,600 130,180 SPRAR 3,979 10,381 20,752 19,715 22,952 31,270 REQUESTS OUT OF SIGHT RECEPTION SYSTEM AND BORDERS 4 5 9.