We are a self-convened group of researchers, activists, and critical workers in protection and reception organisations who - starting from the experience in Parma - have decided to start a participatory mapping of the transit camps that have sprung up in different parts of Italy.
The problem: camps without rights #
We are faced with a new case, albeit in continuity with the emergency and securitarian approaches with which the phenomena of illegalised migration are managed. The progressive deconstruction and de-legitimisation of the public asylum protection and reception system, already evident in the policy of Extraordinary Reception Centres (CAS) and in the emptying of services and rights for asylum seekers, has undergone a sudden acceleration in 2023. From the so-called Cutro Decree (later converted into law), to the declaration of a state of emergency, up to the Decree (19 September 2023) strengthening the Centres for Return (CPR) - multiplying them in number and extending the time spent inside them - a whole series of regulatory measures, with immediate effects on the territories and incoming migrants, have aroused the concern and indignation of a part of civil society.
In this scenario subjected to sudden - as much as worsening - changes, there is also the establishment of a new type of centres - which we can call ’transit camps’ - that escape the control of protection bodies and even local institutions. These centres are even more difficult to know and observe than the already opaque CASs or CPRs, whose notices, assignment procedures, and specifications are at least known, and towards which - albeit with great difficulty and not always successfully - control, civic monitoring, and reporting practices have been established.
These new camps configure a new form of extraordinary and temporary ‘reception’. In the event of massive migratory flows and to make up for the unavailability of places in other centres, the prefectures are authorised to activate ‘other’ temporary structures - in addition to the already known CAS - where the rights and guarantees for those accepted are really reduced to a minimum. What is known is that the length of stay in these facilities is not defined and that any form of social assistance is totally excluded. But little else is known outside, at least with respect to the legal and procedural framework that regulates these camps.
When one manages to physically cross the door of these places, one discovers an even more opaque and disturbing reality: from the difficulty in obtaining adequate guidance and legal assistance, to the wall of rubber for the asylum procedure, to the conditions of promiscuity (even between unaccompanied minors and adults, alone or in family units) and abandonment in which the people present find themselves, even when they manifest evident health problems and/or are visibly tried not only by the journey but by the entire migratory experience.
The Stuck in Transit Project #
On the basis of the first evidence found in Parma by CIAC, the urgency arose to understand what is happening in the different territories, from the south to the north of the peninsula: which and how many camps have been opened, where, with which managers, with which formal acts and which operational practices. To do this, we decided to launch a participatory, grassroots mapping exercise, travelling quickly through the channels of direct contacts and word-of-mouth to collect reports and information, even fragmentary, to be followed by a direct in-depth study to verify and validate the data collected.
The aim is to carry out a mapping exercise to publicly reveal the presence of these centres, their distribution over the territory, their composition, focusing on the impact they have on the people incarcerated there and the role they play in the reception system.