E/CN.4/2005/85/Add.3 page 4 Introduction 1. The Special Rapporteur visited Italy from 7 to 18 June 2004, at the invitation of the Italian Government. She takes this opportunity to thank the Government for its valuable assistance and cooperation, which eased her task very considerably. She also thanks the Permanent Mission of Italy to the United Nations Office at Geneva for its collaboration in preparing her visit. She further expresses her thanks to the numerous representatives of civil society and private individuals she was able to interview. The programme office of the United Nations Development Programme and the Office of the International Organization for Migration (OIM) in Rome provided logistical and administrative support of an impeccable standard, without which the visit would not have been so productive. 2. In the course of the last three decades Italy has gone from being regarded as a country people emigrate from to being one of the favoured new destinations of migrants arriving in Europe. It is subject to considerable migratory pressure for many reasons, both geographical and economic. At the time of the visit, the Government estimated that immigrants in Italy numbered some 2.5 million individuals, or 4 per cent of the population. According to data from the Ministry of the Interior, there were 2,039,657 non-European Union foreign citizens living in Italy with a residence permit in 2003. Traditionally, the countries of origin of immigrants living in Italy have been Morocco (227,000 legal residents in 2003) and Albania (233,000). The highest increase in the last four years, however, has been in legal immigrants from Romania (239,000), Ukraine (112,000) and Poland (65,000). Rising numbers have also been observed with arrivals of nationals from China (100,109), the Philippines (73,847) and Senegal (47,762). 3. One of the aims of the Special Rapporteur’s visit was to compile information on border controls and security and the system for the administrative detention of undocumented immigrants. She wished to assess the impact of the recent reform of immigration legislation in policies for the integration of the immigrant population living in Italy. The conclusions and observations of this report are based on the information compiled and on the relevant international standards. I. PROGRAMME OF THE VISIT 4. From 7 to 11 June the Special Rapporteur held meetings in Rome with senior officials at the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Labour, Justice, the Interior and Equal Opportunities, and officials in charge of departments dealing with migration. In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, these included the Under-Secretary of State, Mr. Antonione, the Director-General and the Deputy Director of the Department for Italian Citizens Abroad and Migration Policies, the Director-General of the Department for Multilateral Political Affairs and Human Rights and the President of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Human Rights; in the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies: the Director-General for Immigration, the President of the Foreign Minors Committee, and the Director-General for the Supervision of Conditions of Employment; in the Ministry of the Interior: the Under-Secretary of State, Mr. D’Alí, the Head of the Department of Civil Liberties and Immigration, the Central Director for Immigration and Border Police and the