Romanian Migrants in
Italy and Spain
Ana Bleahu
PhD student University of Bucharest, Romania
Social/medical anthropology
postgraduate presentation workshop
19th march, 2008
About Romanian migration:
• Emigration is a rather new phenomenon in Romania
after 1990.
• Labor migration of the skilled workers is the most
important form of Romanians moving to a foreign
country.
• The official statistics estimated that 2 to 2.5 millions
Romanians people (Sandu, coord. 2006) work legally or
illegally abroad. Most of them are in Europe, especially
in Italy and Spain.
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Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
About the research?
• A particularly interest will be paid to the role of the
legislative framework in this process. (Immigation Law,
Royal Decree, The Bilateral Labour Agreements Signed
by Romania and Spain) and in Italy (The Martelli Law,
The Turkish-Neapolitan Law, The Bossi Fini Law).
• There will be analyses the consequences of official
policies on the labour market and common life of
migrants in the host countries.
• On the other hand will be stressed some of the
irregularities of labour recruitment mechanisms in Spain
and Italy and Romania.
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Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
The ideea of this presentation will be just to give you a
sample of how I intend to organize my work
1.
2.
3.
4.
Methodology and sources of data
Officials Romanians migrants
Irregular Romanians migrants
Roma, Italy - case studies
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Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
I. Methodology and sources of data
Spain
Italy
Official statistics:
Official statistics:
Anuario Estadistico de Extranjeria 1996,
1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002,
2003, 2004, 2005
Qqualitative data:
interviews with Romanians migrants
2003, 2005, 2006, 2007 in Spain or
Romania
interviews with Spanish authorities
(2006)
Interviews Romanian authorities
(2005, 2006, 2007)
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Immigrazione – Dossier Statistico - 2005,
2006, 2007
Qqualitative data:
interviews with Romanians migrants
(2006, 2007) in Italy or Romania
interviews with Italian authorities
(2007)
Interviews Romanian authorities
(2005, 2006, 2007)
Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
My research will be based on two types
of analyses:
• I will analyze official data and official institutions involved
in the phenomenon (local administration, Romanians
church, Romanians non-governmental organisations)
and
• I will analyze qualitative data collected on my fieldwork
and I will refer myself to the ad hoc, hierarchical
structures or “institutions”, based either on free
association or else on power, blackmail or violence.
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Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
For instance:
Spain: The number of Romanians with resident ship and with permit of work between
1996 and 2005 or the numbers of Romanians on sector of activities (2005)
2005
126298
192134
Number of Romanians immigrants on sector of activities
83372
2004
63926
54688
46251
2003
2005
33705
39373
2002
24856
18626
2001
2000
10983
4012
1999
4423
3048
1998
3013
2414
1997
1989
1459
1996
1386
1078
2004
2002
0
w ith permit for w ork
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residents
20000
AGRICULTURA
40000
60000
CONSTRUCCIÓN
80000
100000
INDUSTRIA
Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
120000
SERVICIOS
I will stressed some problems in collecting official data:
Level of education of
Romanian workers - 2004
Post secondary school
996
Technical university
363
Secondary school
Vocational school
Unfinished primary
school
70978
2026
17232
School
year
%
Number
of
persons
who
abandon
the
primary
school
What
age
have
they in
2004
(possib
le
migran
ts)?
89/90
2.4
68
30
90/91
1.8
48
29
91/92
1.3
34
28
92/93
1.5
62
27
93/94
0.6
17
25
94/95
0.7
27
24
Total
Alliterate
286
16040
Source: Romanian National Institute for
Statistics
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Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
In terms of official institutions, will be stressed the role
of the Romanian orthodox church and of the Romanian
non-governamental organizations of migrants
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Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
On the other hand, there will be presented some case studies
about Romanians communities of irregular migrants
In 2006, there were
around 15000
recorded people, the
most of them
Romanians or
Gypsies from
Romania, who use
to live in informal
camps, on public or
private place.
(data from Dipartmento, UO
Emergenza Sociale ed
Accoglienza)
Informal camps, 2006, Map of Roma, Comune di Roma,
Dipartmento, UO Emergenza Sociale ed Accoglienza
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Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
PONTE MAMOLO – alongside the river
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Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
How to find the place?
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Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
The main street and back of their house…
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Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
Domestic life: washing in the river and coking
with
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Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
From their house back to the town!
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Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
… for work, to the DEPOTS
(the place in the street where you can find jobs)
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Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
Malagrota, in the forest,
La Fripta!
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Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
To get there, you get off at Mala Grota, at a normal bus stop. The
locality you are looking for lies to your left. You walk along the road
until when you enter “boscheti,” the bushes. You jump over a small
ditch and then you enter a forest. The trail taking you to “La Fripta”
starts inside this forest.
“Before, we had the huts on the border of the lake, it was simpler, we
had free access to the water, but the carabineri kept coming there
with bulldozers and destroyed them. Here they can not bring the
bulldozers because it is forest and the carabineri are in no mood to
pull down our huts and destroy them. Some are tied to trees. There
is someone who knits the frame from thicker branches. Then we
cover them in plastic sheets, tarpaulins… It is better here, because
we are safe, only the carabineri know of us…they have gotten to
know almost all of us over all these years since we have been here;
they know everything…the Italian bosses coming to take us to work
also know.” (inhabitant of La Fripta, Romanian immigrant, aged 37)
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Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
„50 euro per months for renting it…”
“they are strong to not be easy destroyed by carabinieri”
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Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
„we are easily hunted down here. If a round-up comes they
rapidly give all of us a “foglia de via”. If you have Romanian
papers and callouses on your palms they don’t hand you the
warning notice. They know that us, those staying here, we
are here to work not to steal.” (immigrant, aged 37)
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Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
Romanian gypsies under the bridge:
Before we lived in this nice old factory, but
“carabibieri” forbitten us to live there…
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…now we are here, waiting for
“sgomberato” (beeing force to leave)
(gypsy from Romania, age 27)
Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
“We live here with our families, childrens…”
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Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
Some details of daily life…
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Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy
The main ideeas of the research will be:
• among the Romanian migrants arise informal forms of selforganization in order to organize and manage the challenges of
being in a foreign country
• the semi-tolerated illegality determines the forms and uses of
networks both in the organisation of the migration and in the forms
of integration into the labour and housing markets.
• migrants have to face under a system that needs their labour but
refuses to acknowledge this need publicly or institutionalize it
openly.
• it emerges that the Italian and Spanish states is caught between
toleration and repression, arbitrarily switching from one mode to the
other.
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Ana Bleahu - Institute for Quality of Life - Romanian Academy