Dimitra-Dora Teloni and Regina Mantanika
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Copyright The Policy Press
years, numerous murders, racist attacks and pogroms have complemented the official
policy of the sweeps, detention centres, violations and so on.
On the other hand, as it has been shown that the anti-racist movement has had
a strong presence in Greece, where it has not only revealed the effects of antiimmigration policies but also defended in practice the rights of immigrants and
refugees and, more importantly, created grassroots welfare structures of solidarity.
Hopefully, the above analysis will contribute to increasing the awareness of social
workers. As we have argued, an in-depth knowledge of the structural causes of social
problems as well as anti-oppressive and anti-racist approaches are invaluable for social
work. While there are signs that social work in Greece is becoming politicised, it
still needs the collective involvement of the majority of social workers to oppose
the neutrality of the ‘culture of silence’ that traditionally dominated the field. In this
direction, the movements have shown the ‘path’ of community action in both antiracist and solidarity activity. Social work needs to reclaim its social role and unite its
voice with that of its service users in demanding social change and social justice. In
other words, it needs to reclaim its basic mission.
Notes
1 Italy has re-emerged as a ‘gateway’ in recent years.
2 Migrants are being denied access to Greek territory: they are intercepted at sea or the
land borders and are pushed back directly to Turkey; or are detained in different detention
centres on the border in order to be deported.
3 Dublin III replaces Dublin II. For information on human rights violations linked to the
Dublin Conventions, see ECRE (2013).
4 No formal standardised immigration admission procedure exists other than scarce regular
migration schemes on invitation. The only way that the vast majority of migrants can
reach the country is by crossing its borders irregularly. Only two regularisation laws have
been passed, in 2001 and 2005 (Laws 2910/2001 and 3386/2005), which applied only
to existing undocumented immigrants. Under these programmes, a number of migrants
regularised their status, certainly under conditions. Since 2005, nothing similar has taken
place. For more information on the situation of irregular immigrant workers and their
integration, see Gropas and Triandafyllidou (2013).
5 For more information, see the film documentary Ruins: Chronicle of an HIV witch-hunt
(http://ruins-documentary.com/en/).
6 The Schengen area comprises 26 European countries that have abolished passport and
any other type of border control at their common borders, also referred to as internal
borders. http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/borders-and-visas/
schengen/index_en.htm
7 These were organised by the so-called residents of the district, together with extreme
right-wing groups. At the same time, and as an answer to that, anti-racists held protests
against these demonstrations.
8 It is indicative that in just 14 months, from October 2011 to December 2012, 200
racist attacks were reported by the Racist Violence Recording Network. From January
to December 2013, the same network documented 166 incidents of racist violence with
at least 320 victims. For more information, see Racist Violence Recording Network
(2012, 2013).
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