Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...

Chapter 5 • Giuseppe De Sario, Laura Corradi, Patricia Ruiz, Enrica Capussotti
neglected. Elidon G., 20 years old, has already been waiting at Regina
Pacis for a year and a half in order to emigrate to the United States, where
his mother and father have been living for almost a decade.
The Universal Human Rights Declaration also discusses the immigrants’
rights of citizenship. As article 15 reads:
(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied
the right to change his nationality.
Do Kosovar immigrants living in Italy have a recognized citizenship? Do
they enjoy the “first and second generation” rights; the right to a suitable
home and employment, the right to decide on the social and political environment
in which they will live? Having just survived such recent and
traumatic wartime experiences, they need to find stability that will allow
them to start a new life. Their expectations change, however, as they seek
employment for themselves, or education for their sons and daughters.
Even if they find an environment free of prejudice, other rights, such as the
cultural “fourth generation” rights, are not fulfilled.
Question: Can you practise your religion here, pray five times a day?
Violça: To pray? I do what I can but not as our religion prescribes,
we don’t have the necessary conditions.
Generally, countries apply two fundamental criteria in order to grant citizenship
to an individual. The first is the Jus sanguinis or blood right,
which allows citizenship to be transmitted from one generation to the next.
The second criterion, known as Jus soli or right of territory, allows an individual
to acquire the citizenship of the State in which he or she was born.
In Italy, given the preservation of these traditional criteria, the immigrants
are refused citizenship status until they have worked in the country for a
fixed period. Paradoxically, the debate on national identity and citizenship
in a global society that has long and loudly professed progressive ideas,
promotes the idea of a citizen as any person that lives and works in a specific
nation-State.
Those fighting to free themselves and other migrants from their “refugee”
status have learned to place their hopes and expectations on future legislation,
meanwhile focusing their efforts on giving the immigrants the freedom
to work in dignity. Therefore, in the interviews, this theme of employment
frequently recurred, as in the cases of Lyfti and Arta, who focus on
emplyment issues in order to steer their minds away from the horrors they
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