The document, signed by hundreds of national and international associations, offers policy makers immediate and concrete proposals to grant the right to health equally and to allow everyone to respect prevention measures.
In times of crisis, formal and substantial inequalities become even more evident. The following notes provide a first overview on the rights of foreign citizens jeopardized by the COVID-19 emergency. This document stands as a partial intervention given that the emergency is still under development and it is not possible to predict what its effects will be overall.
It is imperative that institutional policy makers analyze the epidemic consequences on society and plan initiatives to protect the population, dealing also with the rights of foreign citizens currently at risk. Italy is interely a multicultural country: over five million foreign citizens reside in Italian territory and immigration is in our Country a structural and ordinary phenomenon, rooted and layered.
If it is undoubtedly true that the virus, in its spread, makes no distinctions, it is equally true that the legal, housing, employment and even existential precariousness to which many foreign citizens are exposed determine specific and different risks, which we urgently need to address even from a public health perspective.
