Immigrant women, a resource to be treasured” “

Some 45% of all migrants in the world are women, and the number of women who leave their own country, also alone, to ask for political asylum, to seek work in support of their family or to join their husbands, is growing. The most dramatic situation is that of the women victims of the white slave trade. But immigrant women constitute, at the same time, a resource that needs to be treasured to ensure “the successful integration of migrants into our societies”. The issue was examined at the congress on “Women and families in migrations”, organized by the CCEE (Council of the European Episcopal Conferences) from 9 to 14 October at Izmir (Turkey) and attended by some forty bishop delegates and national directors of the pastoral ministry for migrants, representing eighteen countries (cf. SirEurope no.36 of 10 October 2002). In Turkey 99% of the population is Moslem and Christians are a very tiny minority (25-30,000) which survives amid a great deal of difficulty. The State is secular and has passed some laws that prohibit proselytism; so that each religious confession is not fully free to express itself. The congress itself, which was supposed to be held in the diocesan centre, had to be shifted to a nearby hotel instead at the request of the local authorities, and was placed under strict police surveillance. The meeting (cf. the twice-weekly Sir no.72 of 11 November 2002 ) ended with some final recommendations that the CCEE will send to the presidents of all the European Episcopal Conferences and with a solemn eucharistic concelebration among the ruins of the church where the Council of Ephesus was held in 431 AD: the Council that proclaimed Mary the Mother of God. This is what emerged from the meeting. The requests of the European Churches. In the final document the European Churches are asked to pay “closer attention to the contexts in which migrants live and from which they come” and to make “the migrants themselves coresponsible for and protagonists of the social and ecclesial life in which they live”. The role of women is emphasized, “in particular the role of women religious, as go-betweens in the context of female migration”. Also emphasized is the need for theological formation on these issues in all pastoral fields. “In Europe – explains Bishop Amédée Grab of Chur (Switzerland), president of the CCEE – immigrant women may play a very important role; we will try to enhance their role and to raise the awareness of the Catholic missions and public opinion on the situation of women in difficulty”. Governments too, that often introduce ever more restrictive laws, “have a need to listen to a clear prophetic voice that is raised against every form of discrimination and persecution”. Ideas, proposals, situations. The proposal for a proper “ministry of welcoming foreigners”, perhaps through an Italian or foreign “cultural mediator”, “which might become a sign of the welcoming arms of the Church in Christian communities”; the organization, by parishes, of summer visits for mixed groups of families, foreign and not; the search for shared places of encounter such as cultural centres, concerts, cineforums, oratories: these are just some of the pastoral proposals formulated by Ina Siviglia Sammartino, professor at the theological Faculty of Sicily, in response to the changes that have occurred in Europe as a result of immigration. It is an invitation to the Church to show “creativity” and to “have a greater dose of prophecy in promoting initiatives and campaigns against child labour, sex tourism, the sexual exploitation of women, the themes of peace, justice, ecology, bioethics, globalization”. The deplorable phenomenon of clandestine women “bought” like merchandise for purpose of marriage, widespread in Germany and also in other European countries, was denounced, in turn, by Gabriele Erpenbeck, of the University of Hannover: “Men choose from catalogues the women they want to marry (who come from Poland, Thailand, Ukraine, Latin America), and after two years can have them sent home again. Often the women are forced to sign contracts in which they renounces any rights in the case of divorce. Criminologists maintain that people now earn more by the trade in women than they do by drug trafficking”. Patrizia Caiffa Sir correspondent at Izmir