EUROPEAN SOCIAL FORUM: The Illegal Find a Legitimate Voice

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

ATHENS, May 6 2006 (IPS) - For close to a million people in Greece, the European Social Forum is not a talking shop. It is the one forum that brings hope more than any other in their fight for legitimacy.

For close to a million people in Greece, the European Social Forum is not a talking shop. It is the one forum that brings hope more than any other in their fight for legitimacy.

Under Greek law, only a handful among these million or so have been accepted as citizens, or even as permanent residents. The rest have no status, and consequently no rights.

“We have had a number of people given permits last year, but that still does not give them the right to be here as permanent citizens,” Kehinde Aig-Imoru from the Greek Forum of Migrants told IPS. “They will still have to keep re-applying for the right to stay on.”

With every renewal date applicants face more and more obstacles, Aig- Imoru said. Many migrants have lived much of their life in this kind of uncertainty.

In a population of 10 million, a million is a large minority. And they are illegal because it suits the government to keep them that way, Antonis Davanelos from the Greek Social Forum, and member of the management committee of the European Social Forum told IPS.

Many of the illegal immigrants are Albanians, Davanelos said. Large numbers come also from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Egypt, he said. “Many of them work in the fishing industry.”

But they need full rights in Greece, he said. That must include the right to healthcare, education and the right to vote, Davanelos said.

Over the years the children of migrants are beginning to face particular hardships. Under Greek law, they become illegal immigrants the day they turn 18 – unless they have a job in hand.

“But they have hardly finished school by then, where will they find jobs to show,” said Aig-Imoru. “This is turning out to be a real big problem. They have no status in Greece, they cannot travel to another country. They can only return to the country of their parents’ origin, and they have nothing to go back to there.”

The Greek Forum of Migrants says that 17 percent of immigrants are children. That number is growing, and so are their problems.

“I have been living day to day like this for eight years,” said a Pakistani at the ESF who gave his name as Ahmed, after some hesitation. “My Pakistani friends and I pack for a big store and supplier. We work all day, there is no overtime.”

But they do not want to return to Pakistan. “There we will not get even this much money. And now after all this time we will get no work at all. And who can we show our face to?”

Ahmed said it was easier for the Albanians “because they can mix with the Greeks, but we can be seen one mile off.” He said he has no papers but he believes the Greek government will not throw him and his mates out. “Basically there is nobody else to do the work we are doing.”

But that is no reason to keep such people working without status, Davanelos said. He acknowledged that the Greek government is not listening to the demands of a group like theirs. “But when we all come out on the street, they will have to listen.”

There is, however, no indication that a vast majority of Greeks are ready to support the demands of migrants for legitimacy and legality.

“Only international pressure can force the Greek government to do something,” Aig-Imoru said. “And that is why it is so important for us to be here at the European Social Forum. This is where we can meet and hope to have our voices carried across Europe.”