On August 14, the useful period for submitting applications for emergence by workers employed in the agriculture, domestic work and personal assistance sectors ended. A measure that, however, does not achieve the intended objective: to regularize exploited workers.
The provision had to obtain the result of favoring the emergence, legality and regularization of employment relationships. The definitive data released by the Ministry of the Interior, however, confirm the concerns and objections advanced by organizations which, like INTERSOS, have been working for years in agricultural exploitation contexts. The applications sent for the emergence of subordinate work totaled 30,694, 15% of the total number of applications submitted. In Puglia, there were 2,871, about half of which in Foggia: 1,268 applications compared to the 6,000 people who live in the ghettos of the area.
“The discouragement in the ghettos is tangible – says Alessandro Verona, Medical Referent of the INTERSOS Migration Unit – perhaps more than before. People are discouraged, behind everyone’s eyes the same awareness can be glimpsed: ghettos exist and will continue to exist. The emergence provision was not, and on the other hand could not, be sufficient: too limiting in the requirements, in the timing and with the great limit of leaving everything up to the employers, that often are an integral part of the exploitation mechanism. The willingness of employers to join a process of regularization was not taken into account, as well as the fear of people trapped for years in this limbo of denied rights. It is correct to speak of regularization, without documents you cannot have a regular job and without a regular job you cannot have a real home. However, it is uncorrect to act with isolated measures without preparing the conditions for a real emergence. Nor can we pretend not to see the social hatred that the creation of ghettos produces: 6 attacks against foreign workers in just 10 days between July and August in the northern area of Foggia, the same area of the attacks with stones of July 2019. Symbolic and ineffective measures are not enough, as the work of the prosecutors which has led to several arrests for exploitation of entrepreneurs and corporals is not enough, because it is useless to punish those who exploit if the existence of those who are exploited is not recognized. We need a courageous intervention, that goes beyond work: to regularize all the people present in the area, recognizing their right to exist and allowing everyone to contribute to society, guaranteeing effective social, housing and working inclusion. Too many opportunities have been lost: either we intervene on several levels, tackling all the problems, or we are just emptying water with a spoon from a sinking boat”.
INTERSOS in FOGGIA
INTERSOS has been operating in Foggia since 2018, carrying out health inclusion and health education activities to support vulnerable people, often migrant seasonal workers, who find themselves, temporarily or permanently, outside the reception systems and socio-health protection mechanisms, providing primary medical care with two mobile units, healthcare guidance services and case management of highly vulnerable patients, as well as health promotion sessions.
With the epidemic wave that has hit Italy, INTERSOS staff have rapidly strengthened and specialized the activities underway on the national territory in order to give an effective response to the increased health needs, protecting not only the individual health of the most fragile population but also the collective one, in order to help reduce the epidemic outbreak. The conversion of the activities in Foggia into COVID-19 prevention activities started on 24th of February 2020. The INTERSOS team active in the area is made up of three doctors, four cultural mediators and a protection officer.
The team is active 6 days a week, with two mobile medical units and a car, between 6 informal settlements in an area of about 60 km, to carry out periodic screening of the population and bring information on prevention. The team carries out triages for the identification of COVID-19 symptoms and guarantees assistance and medical examinations to those with other health needs and vulnerabilities. In addition to this, it carries out awareness sessions on the prevention measures to be taken to prevent contagion and distributes health and hygiene kits. At the end of April, after several requests, INTERSOS obtained from the Puglia Region the installation of drinking water tanks in the Capitanata settlements and the distribution of hygiene kits.