Italian Immigrants In Italy

An estimated 160,000 Roma and Sinti live in Italy [19]. As a population they are frequently associated with disease, crime, delinquency and other social ills, and they are forced to live in “camps”. The situation is highly complicated as children born to immigrant Roma or non-Roma parents within Italian territory lose resident permits granted by their parents’ passports when they turn 18. In Italy being born on Italian soil does not automatically make you a citizen, and to complicate matters even more being born on Italian soil often means the children are not recognized by their parents’ home country. These children hold no citizenship which makes them ineligible for standard state social assistance and are not afforded the legal protection guaranteed to citizens [19].

According to the report by the Council of Europe, Italy has a substandard record in terms of female employment, ranking second to bottom of all European Union countries [20]. Even though, Italian women are often more educated and and earned better grades than their male counterparts, they are paid 16.8% [21] less, and less than 50% are employed

As of 2013 there were 5.5 million civil, and 3.4 million criminal cases [24] held up in the court waiting to be heard. It is estimated that it would take approximately 8 years to hear the civil cases, and about 5 years to hear the criminal cases [24]. As if that backlog were not serious enough there is a huge number of cases waiting to be heard on appeal. The appeals court hears more than 80,000 of them a year [24], and is still way behind. Many people sit in jails waiting for their case to be heard by the court often for years because of the backlog, while those found guilty but waiting for appeal go free on the streets. With the system in such a state it is common that by the time those found guilty have the two appeals granted to them the statute of limitations has run out, and their record is wiped