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