Looking for Some Coherence: Migrants In-between Criminalisation and Protection in Italy

Abstract

This chapter looks at the socio-political aspects as implicated in phenomenon of smuggling and trafficking, and especially at the tension between declared intents and covered ones, between processes that aim to criminalize migrants and those that aim to protect them. On one hand, trafficking in human beings is understood as a deplorable phenomenon whose victims have to be protected; on other hand, prostitutes seem to remain always already prostitutes, as if prostitutes cannot fall into category of victims. The chapter considers the phenomenon of smuggling, which has dominated Italian political agenda since mid-1980s and demonstrates why an involution has occurred in the way in which the issue of illegal immigration is understood and tackled. It then considers the way in which article 18 on social protection has been put into practice, and especially the way in which trafficked women and particularly those forced into sex market are protected and assisted. Keywords: criminalize migrants; illegal immigration; Italian; prostitutes; protect migrants; smuggling; social protection; trafficking in human beings