Italy’s Reception System for Asylum Seekers and Refugees A System with Many Shadows and Little Light

Abstract

Since 2011 the increasing arrivals of asylum seekers forced the Italian State to organise a wider and more widespread reception system for refugees and asylum seekers. This paper aims to highlight some of the shadows and few lights that characterize this system, showing its social effects on the population hosted. The analysis proposed is based on the study of official documents, laws and statistics produced by Italian state, interviews with some migrants that lived in reception centres and the participation of the author in the campaign ‘LasciateCIEntrare (Let us in)’ as an activist. After the analysis, some suggestions are proposed about possible policies able to overcome this reception system, also through a radical change in the Italian housing policy oriented to guarantee housing access as a universal social right.