Young People, Little Protection: From Landing to Turning Eighteen. The Situation in Some Centres in Eastern Sicily

For a few months, the Hotspot at Pozzallo has included a container for “welcoming” children and families. A space is “dedicated” to those who are meant to only be passing through the Hotspot after the landing, but in reality they are frequently illegally and lengthily detained, a fact which has now become “normal and inevitable.” The situation is submissively accepted by some of the organisations that ought to be defending the rights of migrants but in fact continually fail to report violations of those rights, more concerned as they are to obtain a piece of the pie within the system than protect and safeguard the new arrivals.

Market Commodities: Surviving in a System of Rejection

'A's story can be found repeated in many other places in Sicily, a story which includes not only minors but also women and men who have been here for many months and “rejection” from the very centres that were meant to welcome them. In the last few weeks more than 1,000 migrants arrived at the port of Catania, 850 on Sunday alone, on board the Bourbon Argos, and 288 a few days later, along with 20 bodies.