Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...

Italian legislation contributes to creating a life of constant precariousness
and limitations for these immigrants. In addition to the laws, the testimonies
depict daily experience deeply marked by prejudice and misunderstanding:
Question: How was life in the Gypsy camp? As soon as you got to
Florence you lived in one of the camps?
Naim: Yes…
Question: And how was it to live there?
Naim: Really bad, I didn’t have anywhere to sleep so I slept in the
camp… nasty life… we didn’t have water, electricity, anything…
After I had got a job I went to live in the Albergo
Popolare [Popular Hostel held by the municipality] for
almost 3 years… but you cannot stay longer than 3 years at
the Albergo Popolare so I bought a caravan and I returned to
live in the camp… I stayed at the camp for 1 year… then
some policemen came and said to me: you have all the
ocuments, job permission, etc… you have a job… so you
cannot stay in the camp… for this reason I was forced back
to the Albergo Popolare…
Question: Now are you living at the Albergo Popolare?
Naim: Yes… but the day before yesterday a letter arrived that
informed me I had to leave, I can’t stay any longer at the
Albergo… the time is expired again…
Question: Where are you thinking of going?
Naim: I can’t afford to rent, I can’t find a house to rent and so I
have to go back to the camp.
Question: Would you like to live in a house?
Naim: Oh, I’d like to find a house to share with my brother; he also
works so we could share the rent…
Question: And why don’t you find yourselves a house to rent?
Naim: That’s impossible because in Florence landlords do not want
to rent houses to Rom unless members of the City Council
help you… alone it’s not possible to find a house because
they are a little racist.
The old photographic image of a man holding a big suitcase, in pursuit of
a solid destiny, is now a rare sight, while today’s migrants are slowly
acquiring the characteristics that come with leading a nomadic life, a
forced one, since they cannot choose where they will live nor for how
long. Their forced migration to western Europe was not an isolated experience,
but should be seen as an extension of the violence that refugees suffered
in their country. Sverre Varvin, a member of the Norwegian
Psychoanalytical Society, speaking at the European Psychoanalytical
Congress held in Berlin in 1999, compared the traumatic experiences of
the Balkan refugees with that of the Holocaust victims and added: “The
transcultural context opens new dimensions to these situations. The actual
circumstance is different from the preceding one, among other things
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