Drawing on in-depth interviews with women from countries such as Ukraine, Poland, Georgia, Belarus, and Kyrgyzstan, this seminar will explore how irregular status affects their working and living conditions, their ability to maintain family life, and their health and well-being. The decision to focus on this group of women is motivated by their significant presence in Italy’s care economy and the specific, yet often overlooked, vulnerabilities they face.

Despite being perceived as white migrants, they occupy a marginalised position within Italy’s racialised and gendered labour hierarchies, often seen as inferior, replaceable, and compliant. Many arrived with tourist visas, under visa-free regimes, or through informal channels, finding themselves trapped in cycles of irregular work and dependency.

Iuliia Lashchuk and Sabrina Marchetti analyse how legal and policy changes (including Poland’s EU accession, the visa-free regime for Ukrainian and Georgian citizens, and the Temporary Protection Directive) have shaped, but often failed to resolve, their precarious situation. While these measures have facilitated legal stay for some, they rarely translate into stable, formal employment, leaving women exposed to exploitation even when technically regularised.

The speakers will explain that legal reforms alone are insufficient without structural changes in Italy’s labour market, welfare system, and migration governance. Moreover, addressing the persistent gap between formal legal status and lived reality is essential to ensure that Eastern European women working in Italy’s domestic and care sector can access rights, protection, and dignity.

The research presented in this seminar was conducted as part of the I-Claim project, funded by the European Union.