The Italian Job
 

BY PRASAD Abu Bakr

Large numbers of youth are nabbed by the law in their attempt to cross the border, scores succeed but yet some others end up in jail or refugee camps while some others end up dead.

The film 'Mille Soya' based on Sri Lanka's illegal immigrants to Italy won both the President's award and Sarasaviya Film award for the Best Film for the year 2004.

Tomorrow its director Boodi Keerthisena and the film's producer Buddhi Keerthisena are being felicitated by the Cultural Foundation and the people of Koswadiya, a little village where the director was born and bred, which also sits not far away from many of the towns such as Chilaw, Madampe, Talwila, Marawila, Wennappuwa and Negombo.

These are towns from which most numbers of youth have reportedly entered Italy illegally and the director inspired to make a film on.

In the late eighties many youth specially from the western coastal belt paid a considerable sum of money to traffickers to ferry them to Italy mostly by large fishing vessels.

The voyage took weeks if not months, some survived the arduous journey but in those days most of them perished for lack of warm clothing and shortage of food.

In the early days many fled to get away from the political unrest and the ethnic crisis that was haunting our country like a plague. Many of the youth that fled came from poor families, specially the catholic fisher folk.

They sold whatever possessions they had to collect towards the traffickers' fee. It was in the range of 80.000 to 100.000 rupees then but as years passed the demand grew and the rate of payment sky rocketed from Rs.300.000 in the mid nineties and stands at 10 to 13 lakhs per person today.

The reason for this enormous upward swing of fees are due to the more sophisticated methods that traffickers use to smuggle in their human cargo from this end right in to the central point of destination anywhere within the Italian state.

There the outlanders are immediately provided with shelter and food by Sri Lankans that are already employed and in possession of work permits and other documents which make them 'legale entrants' of the soil that they stepped foot upon illegally on arrival.

In the initial stages most of the youth were smuggled in high powered fishing boats to African shores from where they are transported in the most gruesome methods, passing through various borders until they arrive at their destination.

Some do this entire journey inside a cold storage where meats and other frozen foods are transported to european countries. Some who undertake to do the journey end up in death not being able to withstand the low temperatures they are supposed to survive in.

Some of the operations at this end are supposedly carried out with the support of top level politicians who lure the police away from the vessels before it leaves our shores. This is done by using their influence on various terms.

This is believed to be happening even today not necessarily with regard to Italy alone but also to other rich states where Sri Lankans are willing to enter illegally.

The more expensive operations involve flying in the job seekers to destinations like Bangkok where false documents are processed and the individuals are flown in to Italy directly by air.

There are also instances where prospective immigrants are flown in to places like Russia, Serbia or Hungary. Their too they obtain mostly false documents and enter Italy under the pretext of returning after a visit from any of the above states.

Emigration officials of neighbouring states of Italy too have made the illegal immigrant dilemma into a lucrative business making human smuggling into a booming trade.

With many natives of developed countries refusing to carry out certain duties and the high scale wage levels that has to be paid in comparison to the living standards enjoyed by those citizens most european countries are compelled to allow a certain number of foreigners into the country to fill in lower end vacancies.

Another angle to this whole scenario is that the zest to undertake the risk prevails even though many casualties have been reported in the media, and the harrowing experiences that some of them under went in the process of attempting to enter Italy.

But nothing will deterer these people from going away annexed in to an uncertain journey.

Leaving to enter Italy illegally has turned out to be a trend rather than a necessity. Even children from well to do families are sent by parents as they find that there is no way that their children are going to secure a job back here at home.

Today most youth living in the homes down the north western coast grow up with the single aspiration of going to Italy using any devious method that are proposed to them.

The Italian government itself has opened up to a limited number of jobs to be offered to foreign nationals which have eased the way for individuals already living and working in italy to find work for their kith and kin back here at home.

It has also come down heavily on illegal immigrants in the recent past discouraging any such activities to take place harbouring its borders.

Many Sri Lankan emigrants that have lived and worked in Italy for many years and travel freely to and from the state say that there are fewer and fewer jobs available at present for foreigners entering Italy in search of work.

The number of foreigners seeking jobs opportunities in Italy has grown over the years and most of them who have found work do not want to return back home on a permanent basis.

So unlike 20 years ago when work was found in plenty the opportunities for most illegal immigrants today that enter Italy in hope to find work is getting bleaker by the day.

Talking to a number of young men who left to Italy many years ago and made good it was clear that they made the trail purely for monetary purposes.

They admit that they would never have been able to improve the living condition of their families if they did not take up the challenge to do what they did in those years.

Today they live in luxury and benefit from those long years that they spent working in a land far away but a strange fact lies unchanged amongst the overseas workers, be it Italy, Japan, Australia or even the expatriate workers in the Middle East; most of them except a very few want to return and settle down in their country of birth.

'We miss our homeland a lot and think of it constantly, we can never fit in to the framework of doing work here because the wages can not be matched and the financial needs of our families grow along side the remittance that we send them every month.

So all our lives we will be toiling away from our families to give them the opportunity of living well' said one man who has now lived and worked in Italy for the past 10 years along with his eldest son who has joined him recently.

So its a never ending quest, with the need to flee looking for greener pastures the story begins. How rich you may become eventually and however much you may miss your family, friends and home the quest will never see an end, it will only grow; grow so big as to sever you from your roots from which you were once held so solid.