Speechbag Podcast E11: Born In Italy – But Never Italian?

Oiza Queens Day Obasuyi of CILD talks about the push to change Italy’s citizenship law, which deprives so many children who were born in Italy of citizenship. Now, with a right-wing government set to take power, the future is more uncertain than ever.

Some 900,000 children born, raised and schooled in Italy are nevertheless denied Italian citizenship. They are denied recognition from the only home they’ve ever known. Why? Because their parents aren’t Italian.
Italy’s citizenship is generally based on jus sanguinis – Latin for 'right of blood'. That means that at least one of your parents must be Italian in order for your to naturally get citizenship. Otherwise, even if you are born and lived your whole life in Italy, you have to wait until the age of 18 and then apply through a long, difficult, seemingly designed-to-fail process.

Will new far-right government sink reform?

But human rights groups are campaigning to change the law. The Speechbag podcast talked to Oiza Queens Day Obasuyi, a junior researcher and program assistant at the Italian Coalition for Civil Liberties and Rights.

Will the far-right government of Giorgia Meloni sink any hope of reform? We spoke with Oiza about how politicians either deprioritize the issue or outright oppose reform, couching it in typical xenophobic, anti-immigration rhetoric.

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Podcast originally published on June 29, 2021

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