DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN THE CONTEXT OF “GENERATION 1.5” IN ITALY: THE IMPACT OF MIGRATION

The present doctoral thesis is the result of the research activities conducted as a part of my PhD at the Department of Human Rights at Università degli Studi di Palermo. The research aimed to examine the impact the fact of migration has on the situation with domestic violence in the context of migrants of Generation 1.5 in Italy. Migrant families in Europe are increasingly experiencing domestic violence and as they represent a vulnerable and marginalised part of the society, it makes researching of the phenomenon challenging. The “Generation 1.5” – people who migrated at the age of 5-19 years, whether it’s with their families or following their family on the family reunification procedure – are one of the most vulnerable groups inside migrant communities. In the majority of cases they didn’t make a choice to migrate and took the fact of migration quite hard, as for them it meant leaving the familiar surroundings, school, friends and having to adapt to a new country, language and culture. Many of them lived through an abandonment of a sort, as in many communities one or both of the parents migrate first, leaving their children with their relatives for a period of a few years, and after reaching the country of destination had to re-meet their parents. This phenomenon creates new situations of vulnerability and conflicts, which, as the result, often leads to situations of domestic violence – direct and witnessed. Through the cases of migrant communities, this research will discover whether the fact of migration in the contest of Generation 1.5 can trigger domestic violence, which forms and why. This research is informed by feminist standpoint theory which suggests that research, particularly which focused on power relations, should begin with the lives of the marginalized. To research this topic, I am using qualitative methods approach: a comparison of personal interviews conducted with people who suffered domestic violence, community leaders, religious leaders and social workers.