Cinzia D'Ambrosi

Since 2015, I have chronicled the personal costs of psychological and physical violence against refugees and asylum seekers. Working across Europe, in Greece, Italy, Hungary, Iceland and Serbia, I have documented the psychological harm that refugees suffer as they wait for their status to be cleared and endure the impenetrability of bureaucracy, detention and physical violence. Refugees and asylum seekers face violence from the moment they try to cross one of Europe's borders, when they wait for formal protection. The EU's continuous failure to handle the flow of refugees has only increased violence, push-backs (illegal practice of forcibly sending back asylum seekers once they cross a border) and abusive practices by organised criminals, those with links to the far right and institutional violence, most often carried out by European government’s own security forces. Hate Hurts
The scale and the repercussion are still under-reported, while unscrupulous media reporting and the use of these for political gain have created further misery for refugees and migrants. Portrayed as job snatchers, invaders and terrorists, they are systematically kept away from a normal life in a web of impenetrable bureaucracy, prejudice and racism, part of a large mechanism of control.
With ‘Hate Hurts’ I am highlighting the negative impact of racism, prejudice and violence on the lives of refugees and migrants in Europe. By exposing these crimes, whether silent of viciously marked on the bodies of the victims, I am hoping that awareness will help to prevent and stop them.
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