• Home /
• Statewatch Database /
• Immigration - new material (50)

Immigration - new material (50)

01 November 2000

Stealing children: institutionalising Roma children in Italy, Kathryn D. Carlisle. Roma Rights no 3, 2000, pp52-55.

Analyses practices whereby Italian authorities take Roma children from their families, institutionalising them or handing them over to foster families. Justifications for this practice include "unsanitary living conditions", "exploitation of minors" and "abandonment". Government policies identifying Roma as nomads result in them living in camps where conditions range "between bad and very bad". If parents bring children with them to sell roses or beg, the charge of "exploitation of minors" is applicable; if they leave them in the camps, authorities may rescue them from "abandonment". Also examines common perceptions of the institutionalisation and adoption of Roma children as "saving" them from their parents and culture.

Campland: Racial Segregation of Roma in Italy, European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC). Country Reports Series No 9 (October) 2000, pp114.

A condemnatory study based on fieldwork and first-hand or eyewitness testimonies of the treatment of Roma in Italy. Interviews with public officials highlight policy contradictions which result in numerous abuses of the rights of the Roma in Italy. These start from their racial segregation into "nomad camps", abuse at the hands of police and judicial authorities, discrimination and the near impossibility of improving their situation through employment and education. This is due to costs, difficulties in obtaining documents, protests by parents, racial discrimination and instability resulting from living in camps without personal addresses, which occasionally suffer raids resulting in the destruction of their property.

Parliamentary debate

Immigration Appeals (Family Visitor) (No.2) Regulations 2000 Lords 2.11.00. cols 1204-1226