Webinar on begging and end of INSigHT webinar series

On November 30th, Gianfranco Bonesso and Michela Semprebon, of the INSigHT Research Team, organised a webinar focusing on begging by Nigerian people. More than 70 participants, including academics and anti-trafficking workers professionals, joined the event and contributed with their own experience.

After a detailed presentation of the findings emerging from the INSigHT research work, anti-trafficking works engaged in outreach activities shared their experience and knowledge on begging in the respective territories in Italy and pointed out pending issues in consideration of the on-going pandemic and the challenges posed by outreach activities with beggars.

It was confirmed that in most territories a considerable decrease in the number of people begging in the streets was recorded during the 2020 lockdown and in the following months too.

However, some workers report that beggars were still present, in some cities, during the lockdown too. The presence of Nigerian people has certainly decreased, compared to individuals of other nationality, particularly from Eastern Europe.

The question remains open on whether Nigerians have migrated elsewhere in Europe, have been deported back to Nigeria or are still in Italy in increasingly invisible situations.

As indicated in the INSigHT reports too, anti-trafficking workers further testified that the phenomenon of trafficking needs to be analysed from its multiple different angles considering the overlapping of various activities and their temporal dimension.

For example, there are situations in which girls and young women are involved in street-based sex work but also as drug mules and in begging. The need was strongly shared to find ways to improve the involvement of migrants in the definition of interventions capable of addressing their needs and of pieces of research that shed light on the trajectories of migrants over the medium-long term, to provide insights on the actions that can be taken to support them in the most effective of ways.

As far as beggars are concerned, the stress was put on the need to provide effective legal support to favour their regularisation as this is key to access to regular employment.

This was the last of a series of 6 webinars organised by the INSigHT Team to disseminate the results of the five strands of research undertaken.

They were successfully attended by an average of 100 participants and contributed to stimulating reflections among anti-trafficking workers and professionals, many of whom participated in several webinars, thus confirming the interest in the topics covered and the urgency to discuss about them.