Roma in Italy

Roma have been living in Italy for seven centuries and the country is home to about 150,000, who live mainly in squalid conditions in one of around 700 encampments on the outskirts of major cities such as Rome, Milan and Naples. They amount to less than 0.3 per cent of the population, one of the lowest proportions in Europe. [However, according to a recent newspaper survey,] more than two thirds of Italians want Gypsies expelled, whether they hold Italian passports or not. 1

Unfortunately the right-wing and far-right wing Italian Government is finding no opposition [...] from their political opponents – opponents who in their turn are conducting (these days on a local level, but during the Prodi Government on a national level) racial policies aimed at driving EU citizens of Roma origin off Italian territory. These measures are also making life very difficult for the Roma with Italian citizenship or those who took refuge in Italy in the 1970s and 1990s.

Measures include camp clearances (without the offer of alternative solutions); constant persecution from members of the police force and magistrates; violence from racist groups, along with press propaganda that has helped to spread racial hatred towards the Roma people. These factors have brought about a dramatic exodus of Roma citizens towards other countries, or a return to their countries of origin. It has caused a drastic fall in their average life expectancy and many tragic deaths (due to illness, malnutrition, cold, hardship, cases of arson and other acts of violence). It has led to the removal of hundreds of Roma children from their legitimate parents, actions justified by their inability to ensure them “decent living conditions”.

If in 2007 about 45,000 Roma people originating from Romania lived in Italy, (where human rights organizations had undertaken serious integration and schooling programmes) persecution from the institutions has now thwarted these programmes and triggered off an ethnic purge, the terrible policies of which have been taken up by the local authorities and organized and carried out by the police force, which has encouraged the local people to collaborate. Many police actions have been characterized by inhumane and brutal behaviour, while no support has been forthcoming from the social services. Today fewer than 3000 Romanian Roma live in Italy, in dreadful socio-sanitary conditions. Even the Roma with Italian citizenship and the refugees from the former Yugoslavia, (about 45,000 in all) after the flight of many Roma families to Spain, France and other Member States, are living in camps in pitiful conditions.

Criminalized, with no access to steady jobs, turned away from schools or, in a few cases, enrolled but discriminated against and underestimated; they survive without any hope of emancipation. The activists involved in fighting for their rights are regularly intimidated and controlled by the police; in some cases they have been subjected to serious violence from members of the police force during camp clearances and persecutory actions.

The percentage of Roma men and women in prisons is very high: they are offered no real legal protection, besides formal defence. Asking for charity (often their only means of support) is banned in many cities through local laws, and the police force is fighting the practice of begging all over Italy. 2

2008 Human Rights Report

According to the 2008 United States State Department Report on Human Rights:

There continued to be reports that police mistreated Roma. The NGOs Opera Nomadi and the Community of Sant'Egidio reported cases of discrimination, particularly in housing and evictions, deportations, and government efforts to remove Romani children from their parents for their protection. Government officials at the national and local levels, including those from the Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Equal Opportunity, met periodically with Roma and their representatives.

In May the Interior Ministry initiated a campaign to crack down on illegal immigration and to close down illegal encampments, based on an emergency decree on security and immigration approved on May 21. Authorities arrested or expelled several hundred foreigners and took the names of others who lived in encampments near major cities. Other measures aimed at cracking down on street prostitution, begging, and selling counterfeit goods, also focused in practice largely on illegal immigrants.

There were a number of violent attacks against Roma, and some camps were set afire. On July 29, the commissioner for human rights of the COE expressed concern about violence against Roma and for the unacceptable living conditions observed in some camps. On June 6, a 16‑year‑old pregnant Romani girl was attacked while she was begging in Rimini. On June 9, unknown persons attacked and burned a settlement of approximately 100 Romanian Roma in Catania.

On May 10, a woman from the Naples suburb of Ponticelli discovered a 16‑year‑old Roma girl in her home holding the woman's six‑month‑old baby. When the girl attempted to flee, a mob surrounded her and threatened to lynch her. The girl was arrested. Anti‑Roma reactions in Ponticelli were immediate. Several hours after the alleged attempted kidnapping, a group of about 20 individuals attacked a Romanian laborer, who was beaten and stabbed once. On May 12, three individuals doused the entrance to a Ponticelli Roma camp with gasoline and set it on fire. Several other isolated shacks that were home to Roma were set on fire in the evenings of May 12 and 13. On May 13, 300 to 400 local residents assaulted one of the largest Roma camps in the area, home to 48 families. Hooded men armed with metal bars pulled down a fence, shouted insults and threats, threw stones, and overturned some cars. Authorities evacuated encampments and relocated former residents to a larger camp protected by police. On May 14, two abandoned groups of shacks were set afire, presumably by the same group of vandals, and with the approval of some local residents, who heckled firefighters when they arrived. By May 15, all Roma in the area had been forced to leave the Ponticelli camps to go to camps and a school in other districts. On December 1, police arrested two individuals in connection with the Ponticelli attacks.

In 2006 the European Committee of Social Rights ruled that the country systematically violated the right to adequate housing for Roma by not providing sufficient camping sites, not providing permanent housing, and evicting Roma from housing. In 2007 the cities of Rome and Milan created some equipped camps, but they proved to be insufficient.

There were no accurate statistics on the number of Roma in the country. NGOs estimated that there were approximately 150,000, including 75,000 citizens, concentrated on the fringes of urban areas in the central and southern parts of the country. Roma live in camps characterized by poor housing, unhygienic sanitary conditions, limited employment prospects, inadequate educational facilities, and inconsistent police presence. 3

According to the Amnesty International 2008 Human Rights Report:

On 2 November, an urgent Decree Law came into force which made it possible for the Italian authorities to expel European Union (EU) citizens based on concerns for public security. The Decree Law did not comply with EU Directive 2004/38 /EC and seemed to be directed at Romanian citizens of Romani origin as a reaction to the suspected murder in Rome of an Italian woman by a man described as a Roma from Romania. Within two weeks after the Decree Law came into force 177 persons had been expelled.In May, the mayors of Rome and Milan signed “Security Pacts” which envisaged the forced eviction of up to 10,000 Romani people. Throughout the year, the Italian authorities engaged in large-scale evictions of Roma communities which contravened international human rights standards. Discriminatory language was used by several leading politicians, including the Prefect of Rome, Carlo Mosca, who reportedly referred to Romanian Roma as beasts (“bestie”) in early November.4

1. 1. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-picture-that-shames-i...
2. 2. http://www.everyonegroup.com/EveryOne/MainPage/Entries/2009/1/8_The_Roma...
3. 3. http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/eur/119086.htm
4. 4. http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/italy/report-2008