Magazine / Current / Illegality / Article | 09/07/2008

Providing help

Anyone without a valid residence permit usually needs assistance. Eurotopics correspondents report on organisations in France, Italy, Malta and Spain that help illegal immigrants on a day-to-day basis.

France: Réseau Education Sans Frontières

In June 2004 teachers, educators, parents, collectives and trade unions concerned about young people of school age who disappeared from school from one day to the next got together to found the organisation Réseau Education Sans Frontières (Network for Education without Borders).

Photo: HessenJense (Photocase)

As it turned out, these children and their parents did not have valid residence papers (sans-papiers) and had been deported. In France, however, minors are not required to show that they have a residence permit. Only if their parents are deported can the children be made to leave the country as well. The network bases its work on Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights, the right to a "normal family life”. By November 2007 the network had 221 member organisations. It is represented at the local level by groups in the French Départements (administrative divisions), which assist families and young people in submitting regularisation applications to the prefectures. The organisation also stages campaigns to help families in desperate situations, such as finding sponsors for the children, or stopping flights carrying deportees from leaving. (Elif Kayi)

Italy: Opera Nomadi

Roughly 9 to 12 million Roma live in Europe and thus form one of Europe's largest minorities. Around 160,000 of them live in Italy, of whom 70,000 have Italian citizenship. The remaining approx. 90,000 come from the Balkans and most of them do not have the right of abode. Italy's Roma live in around 700 nomad camps located all over the country but with a large concentration around Milan and Rome. Since 1965 the organisation Opera Nomadi has been taking care of Roma living illegally in legal camps and of the growing number of illegal camps. The organisation opposes the proposal made by Interior Minister Roberto Maroni to fingerprint minors as well as adults in order to document and count the Roma. In its efforts to integrate immigrants Opera Nomadi ensures that children of school age have access to education by accompanying them to state schools, helps the Roma find jobs and obtain the right of abode, conducts health checks and immunisation campaigns and improves living conditions by building sanitary facilities. (Eva Clausen)

Malta: the Jesuit Refugee Service

The Jesuit Refugee Service is a Catholic organisation operating in more than fifty countries. The JRS Malta was founded in 1993 to help asylum seekers who at that time were arriving on the island from crisis regions in the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe, mainly Iraq and Bosnia. The JRS has made it its mission to defend the rights of refugees and forcibly displaced people. Its mandate is "to go where the need is greatest and where no-one else helps”. Most refugees arrive in Malta by boat and are generally discovered by the Maltese authorities while still at sea and then interned in one of the four refugee camps on the island. The JSR provides legal, social and health assistance. It also draws public attention to the plight of refugees and offers them pastoral care. In addition, the JRS is involved in offering further training to lawyers and law students in the field of refugee law. (Jochen Wittmann)

Spain: Acoge

The organisation Acoge - from the Spanish verb "acoger", which means to "take in" - is a nation-wide network founded in 1991 by several action groups with the aim of improving the coordination of work with immigrants. Acoge receives financial support from government agencies and the European Social Fund for its politically-independent charity work. According to the organisation's own data it has around 1,300 volunteers working at least once a week at one of the 57 Acoge centres. Over 100,000 immigrants took advantage of the services provided by Acoge last year. Acoge intercedes on behalf of immigrants at a political level and encourages them to organise themselves. At the same time it helps those who have just arrived in Spain to find appropriate and affordable accommodation and informs them of their rights. The organisation also supports immigrants in their search for work and provides language courses and opportunities for further education. According to the national statistics institute, the data of which also encompasses the majority of immigrants without residence permits because even "illegal" immigrants are registered with local authorities in Spain, foreign residents currently account for approximately 11.3 percent of Spain's total population. Most of these immigrants come from Latin America, above all Ecuador and Colombia, and also from North Africa, in particular Morocco. In the past few years the percentage of immigrants from Eastern Europe, mainly Romania and Bulgaria, has increased. (Tom Gebhardt)

Further articles on the subject » EU Enlargement / Neighbourhood Policy, » Migration, » Integration, » Minorities, » France, » Italy, » Spain, » Malta
More from the press review on the subject » EU Enlargement / Neighbourhood Policy, » Migration, » Integration, » Minorities, » France, » Italy, » Spain, » Malta