Migration Policy Centre - MPC

Join our seminar that will deal with the institutional discrimination.

This seminar will investigate, with reference to the Italian context and the local level, on which base discriminatory rules have been introduced, which types of benefits or services are denied, in which ways local authorities try to combine formal respect to equality of treatment and the political purpose to exclude or disadvantage immigrants and refugees. This kind of discrimination stems from the relatively wide level of autonomy that local authorities enjoy in Italy and is connected with various policies of exclusion enacted in the last decades in Italy, since Italy discovered to have become a country of immigration and the issue began to be exploited on the political ground.

The discussed sample includes disputes on bans or forms of restrictions related to four welfare areas (housing, health system, childcare, monetary bonuses) which are ruled and provided at sub-national level; specifically: (5) calls for public housing / social funds for housing, (4) registration to the health system/ economic bonuses for healthcare needs, (3) monetary supports to families for childcare and (3) emergency measures (adopted during the pandemic crisis).

With respect to the method adopted, 95 documents of various types were gathered and analysed. Specifically, the main juridical materials related to each of these cases were considered, such as:

1. Cease-and-desist letters that usually precede the intent of a dispute;
2. Defensive memories of the parties involved for the support of the respective juridical thesis;
3. All the final court judgments.

On the other side, the seminar will elaborate on the opposition against such policies, taking legal advocacy by engaged anti-racist layers into consideration. Finally, it will raise the issue of the low engagement by immigrants’ associations, and by the same victims, in struggles against institutional discrimination in Italy.