The systemic overcrowding at the Lampedusa Hotspot and the inhumane conditions of informal detention to which foreign nationals are subjected in the facility, which in the summer months can accommodate up to more than four times the number of people allowed by the current capacity of 250, are well known. At the end of August[1], the Agrigento Public Prosecutor’s Office convened a summit and opened an enquiry to assess the centre’s hygiene and sanitary conditions, following the filing of a complaint by the Lampedusa-based Legambiente committee concerning the degradation and environmental pollution caused by the spillage of untreated sewage from the centre into the valley surrounding the facility.
Equally well known[2], within the so-called Hotspot approach, are the systematic practices of hindering the access to the procedure for requesting international protection and other rights at the border, including the absence of structured referral mechanisms with regard to vulnerable categories, in particular survivors of trafficking and gender-based violence.
The lack of systematic consideration of the gender perspective in all policies and actions[3] is not only found in the absence of structured referral mechanisms on vulnerable categories, and in the lack or inadequate implementation of legislation to protect people who have survived or are at risk of experiencing gender-based violence, as we will see later, but also in the scarcity or unavailability of disaggregated data on gender identity, the so-called gender data gap, related to arrivals by sea and to the stay in the various Hotspots. In fact, the statistical dashboard published daily by the Ministry of Interior[4] says nothing about the sex and gender of the people who have landed and passed through the facilities managed by the Central Directorate of Civil Services for Immigration and Asylum. In order to find the few disaggregated data on the gender identity of the people who landed last year, one must refer to the Fact Sheet[5] published in December 2020 by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which reprocesses data provided by the Ministry of the Interior and apparently not independently available on the Central Statistical Office section of the Ministry of the Interior website: 6% of the 34,000 people who landed in Italy in 2020 are women (and 19% are minors, accompanied or not). Therefore, last year 2040 women entered Italy by sea, and it is presumable that most of them passed through the Hotspots. This data, not present among those provided by the UNHCR, can be found in the reworking of the data contained in the Report to Parliament 2021 by the National Guarantor of the Rights of Persons Deprived of their Liberty: of the 19,874 persons transited through the Lampedusa Hotspot in 2020, 1,275 (6.4%) were women and 3,392 minors (accompanied and unaccompanied). In the analysis of the correspondence of these data to reality, the above-mentioned number related to minors, accompanied and unaccompanied, is relevant, since it is not disaggregated by gender neither in the UNHCR document nor in that of the National Guarantor. Even the numbers provided in September 2021 by the Prefecture of Agrigento in response to a generalised civic access of the In Limine project are not disaggregated by gender with regard to minors. However, they show a significant increase in the presence of women among the people who passed through the Lampedusa facility from 1 July to 27 September 2021: 16.89% of the 14,422 people unlawfully detained at the Hotspot in the period indicated were women (1225). For a more comprehensive reading, to these 1225 must be added the figure of 2436 minors, both accompanied and unaccompanied, who transited through the facility on the island, since, as mentioned above, it is not broken down by gender.
And this in the face of a national legislation – significantly influenced by European and international law, which in turn starts from the recognition that ‘violence against women is a manifestation of the historically unequal power relations between the sexes, which have led to domination over women and discrimination against them by men and prevented their full emancipation’ and recognising ‘the structural nature of violence against women, in that it is gender-based, and also recognising that violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position vis-à-vis men”[6] – which, while certainly improvable and extensible, especially with regard to its effective implementation and the amount of resources invested, already provides for extensive protection of survivors of trafficking and gender-based violence, through the establishment of specific mechanisms and devices, attributing to the competent authorities a significant responsibility in terms of preliminary identification of survivors of or risk of experiencing gender-based violence (all the more so if they are present in a governmental structure such as Lampedusa, where informal detention of foreign nationals is systematically practised) their immediate safety, the provision of information on their rights, the channelling of them into priority procedures for both formal identification and transfer from the Hotspot, the recognition of their period of reflection, and their referral to specialised bodies[7].
However, the results of the monitoring activities of the Lampedusa Hotspot carried out within the In Limine project, reveal an applicative reality far from the framework outlined by the above-mentioned legislation and confirm the lack of systematic consideration of the gender perspective in the implementation of migration policies and access to rights at the border.
An analysis from a gender perspective of the specific context of Lampedusa requires highlighting some specific profiles. In fact, if the worsening, caused by the systematic overcrowding of the structure, of the practices of immediate selection and informal classification of foreign citizens into applicants for international protection, to be addressed to the reception procedures, and not applicants for protection, to be addressed to the procedures preparatory to repatriation, concerns all the foreign citizens confined in the Lampedusa structure, the high overcrowding, the promiscuous cohabitation, the sharing of bathrooms, the prevalence of male FFOO personnel, the absence of places where to conduct interviews in a protected setting, the lack of access to adequate mediation and information and to structured identification and referral mechanisms, expose women to a high risk of experiencing (in some cases, further) violence. These serious gaps also risk significantly undermining the determination of women who intend to seek protection from the authorities because they are fleeing from an experience of gender-based violence (such as they are controlled by a trafficking network, they experience domestic violence, or suffer abuse) or because of the above-mentioned conditions, experience an incident or abuse or do not feel safe within the facility. It should be noted that this article intends to focus only on women, while being aware that the potential impact of exposure to these conditions is intersectional, affecting, among others, persons with disabilities, older people, queer or LGBTQI community members, and accompanied and unaccompanied minors.
Women who arrive on the island, in some cases alone and/or minors, and in any case already worn out by the experience that determined their expatriation and by the difficult and dangerous journey to Italy, would find themselves forced to sleep for days outside, on foam rubber mattresses placed directly on the ground, in the proximity of men who are strangers to their families, in promiscuous conditions[8]. The condition of strong insecurity is further amplified by the promiscuity and insufficiency of the available bathrooms. According to the testimonies collected during the activities of the In Limine project, there are only two Turkish-style toilets for the hundreds of people who occupy the outside area in case of overcrowding, which do not have a lock and are therefore ineffective in guaranteeing the privacy and safety of the women who use them. Even after the end of the waiting time in the external area, which, as mentioned, can last for days, and once authorised to enter the internal area of the facility, the women would find themselves at the mercy of the group to which the division of beds would be de facto delegated, since there is no formal assignment by the staff of the facility, and having to share rooms and bathrooms (which, even inside, are insufficient to ensure the needs of those actually confined there, and without internal locks) with men who do not belong to their families. In a context characterised by such critical issues, no mechanism of vulnerability identification and subsequent referral, which should be implemented with the support of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) team as foreseen by the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) applicable to Hotspots[9], can be adequate and effective.
“In hotspots it is difficult to identify people who are victims of violence or trafficking: there is the police, the environment is that of an identification centre; minors should not pass through hotspots, it is an inappropriate context. In the hotspot, perceived as a place of real detention, people are afraid” (Testimony of two operators contained in the report Women in the Network against Violence, Samira Project: for a competent and timely reception of foreign women and girls in situations of violence and trafficking arriving in Italy, November 2017[10]).
Such serious and structural promiscuity, together with the systemic overcrowding of the Hotspot, the very often prolonged stay, the obstacles posed by the practice in accessing the international protection procedure and/or the necessary protection, fosters a general climate of insecurity and increases the risk that women are exposed to the reiteration of violence. This worrying picture is confirmed by the GREVIO report on the implementation of the Istanbul Convention by Italy, published in January 2020[11], which denounces the important shortcomings of the Hotspots – in terms of overcrowded and promiscuous facilities, absence of private spaces for confidential interviews and of safe spaces and separate bathrooms, insufficient number of cultural mediators and interpreters, non-uniformity and lack of application of vulnerability assessment formally provided for by the legislation and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) of the Ministry of Interior, lack of specific training opportunities on the topic for staff, lack of specialisation within the managing bodies, high staff turnover, limited or no access by bodies specialised in gender-based violence – and the dangers they represent for women and girls in terms of exposure to the reiteration of violence, access to protection and refoulement in the country of origin.
The lack of adequate and effective identification and referral paths and the lack of implementation of what is already provided for by the legislation to protect people who have survived or are at risk of experiencing gender-based violence and/or who belong to the vulnerable category is therefore not the result of contingent and emergency situations (since not even the overcrowding of the Hotspot can be attributed to such circumstances, the inhuman conditions of informal detention and the frequent violation of the fundamental rights of those detained at the Hotspot, in light of the systematic nature of these critical issues that appear to be inherent to the Hotspot approach), but rather the direct result of the failure of the competent authorities to integrate a gender perspective in the border policies and, therefore, in the organization and management of the Lampedusa facility and the services that should be guaranteed to the people detained there.
Integrating a gender perspective to the Lampedusa context implies a total questioning of the Hotspot approach itself, with a definitive end to systematic practices hindering access to protection and other rights at the border (ensuring, inter alia, women at all stages of their stay in the Hotspot with adequate information about their rights) and the informal detention of female citizens transiting through it, the Contrada Imbriacola facility itself and the procedures applied there to make them gender-sensitive (equalizing, just to mention a few examples, the presence of female and male staff, both in the FFOO and in the managing body, by significantly increasing the number of available bathrooms and their security, by guaranteeing women a sufficient number of bathrooms dedicated exclusively to them, by creating protected spaces for the conduct of interviews) also through the training of the staff working there and the adoption of the multi-agency approach and the consequent involvement of social and health services, anti-violence centres and non-governmental organisations specialised in gender issues. It is clearly imperative that these measures are supported by adequate financial resources so that they can be effectively implemented and do not remain unrealized, as many of the provisions to protect survivors of or at risk of gender-based violence that already exist in our legal system.
[1] ilSicilia.it, Migranti, esito vertice Procura di Agrigento: rischio sanitario in Hotspot, 30 August 2021, https://www.ilsicilia.it/migranti-esito-vertice-procura-di-agrigento-rischio-sanitario-in-hotspot/
[2] See, inter alia: Associazione per gli Studi Giuridici sull’Immigrazione, Ombre in frontiera – Politiche informali di detenzione e selezione dei cittadini stranieri, Report del progetto In Limine, March 2020, http://www.asgi.it/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Ombre-in-frontiera.-Politiche-informali-di-detenzione-e-selezione-dei-cittadini-stranieri-2.pdf; Denaro, Chiara, Diritto, Immigrazione e Cittadinanza, Politiche di (ri)confinamento in tempo di pandemia: l’utilizzo di “navi quarantena” in Italia e l’accesso al diritto di asilo, Fascicolo n. 2/2021, https://www.dirittoimmigrazionecittadinanza.it/saggi/760-politiche-di-ri-confinamento-in-tempo-di-pandemia-l-utilizzo-di-navi-quarantena-in-italia-e-l-accesso-al-diritto-di-asilo/file
[3] European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), Integrazione della prospettiva di genere in tutte le politiche e azioni a tutti i livelli, Glossary & Thesaurus, https://eige.europa.eu/thesaurus/terms/1185?lang=it
[4] Ministry of Interior, Cruscotto statistico giornaliero, http://www.libertaciviliimmigrazione.dlci.interno.gov.it/it/documentazione/statistica/cruscotto-statistico-giornaliero
[5] United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Italy Fact Sheet December 2020, 20 January 2021, https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/84333
[6] Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, 2001, https://rm.coe.int/16806b0686.
[7] See: Articles 18, 18-bis e 19 c. 1 e 1.1 D.Lgs. 286/1998; L. 11 agosto 2003, n. 228; L. 27 giugno 2013, n. 77; D.Lgs. 4 marzo 2014, n. 24; D.Lgs. 142/2015 (in particular art. 9 c. 4ter, art. 10, art. 7 c. 5, art. 10, e art. 17); Linee guida per l’identificazione delle vittime di tratta tra i richiedenti protezione internazionale e procedure di referral della Commissione Nazionale per il Diritto d’Asilo e dell’UNHCR; Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) – applicable to Italian Hotspots.
[8] Lampedusa hotspot: more and more a place of confinement, the “hole in the fence” is also closed, In Limine, 18 August 2021.
[9] Ministry of Interior, Standard Operating Procedures applicable to Italian Hotspots.
[10] https://www.direcontrolaviolenza.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Report-Samira_web_ridotto.pdf
[11] GREVIO, Baseline Evaluation Report – Italy, January 2020, https://rm.coe.int/grevio-report-italy-first-baseline-evaluation/168099724e.