“I was in prison for 2.5 years as a child”

The economy is defying the crisis, the labor market is booming. Many companies can only find the personnel they urgently need abroad. This means that the Swiss population is increasing – soon there will be nine million people.

Not everyone likes it. For Swiss Life President Rolf Dörig (65), the country’s biggest problem is immigration. Last week, the business leader announced he would join the SVP and called for new immigration regulations: “Why don’t we reintroduce the seasonal worker law, i.e. temporary residence without families?” he asked in an interview with SonntagsBlick. “This will probably be appropriate for many foreign professionals as well.”

This isn’t the first time a prominent SVP member has advocated a return to seasonal worker law. Former party leader Toni Brunner (48) said a few years ago, “It was a very good system, but unfortunately politics first softened it and then abolished it.”

disastrous conditions

Such statements bring back terrible memories for Luigi Fragale, 39. Solothurn came to Switzerland in the late 1980s as the son of an Italian seasonal worker. He knows what this “quota model” can mean for a family: “My mother, younger brother and I were illegally in Switzerland. We had to live in hiding. I spent almost 2.5 years in prison as a child.”

The seasonal labor law was introduced in Switzerland in 1934 and remained in effect until the introduction of free movement of people in 2002. it was also intended to prevent “foreign infiltration”.

Seasonal workers, mainly from Italy, Spain, Portugal and later the Balkans, were limited to nine months per year. Most of the workers lived in barracks in cramped quarters, often under disastrous hygienic conditions. Change of residence or employer is prohibited. Worst of all, they had to leave their wives and children at home.

Luigi’s father, Antonio Fragale, could not stand being separated from his loved ones for long. However, returning to his hopeless homeland, Calabria, was not an option for him. So he illegally brought his family to Switzerland and hid them in a small apartment in the Solothurn suburb of Bellach. A traumatic period for Luigi: “We were almost always inside. If I’m allowed out, then only in a small meadow right in front of the house. »

The Fragale family lived in constant fear of being discovered. Little Luigi was not allowed to speak too loudly so that no one would feel offended. He had almost no playmates.

He was also taught to always be extremely careful not to injure himself while playing. “We were not insured and therefore could not go to the doctor or hospital.”

Luigi enrolls against all odds, as a woman in the school community dedicates herself to the interests of seasonal children. But then she, her brother, who is two years younger, and her mother, Rosanna, are suddenly threatened with deportation: Another seasonal worker protested the political community because Fragales was apparently allowed to live undisturbed here in Switzerland, whereas her family had to. left. stay in Italy.

blessing in disguise

Betrayal of your countrymen is a chance for Luigi and his family. They don’t have to go back to Italy, but they get permanent residence – not for charity, but for financial reasons: “My father got a loan from his employer for a house in Calabria. And since my father threatened to return to Italy as well if the family had to leave, the residence permit The leave suddenly worked. The employer was afraid he would never get his money back.”

Luigi Fragale tells his whole story in his new documentary “In the Land of Forbidden Children” (see box). Toni Ricciardi, an immigration historian at the University of Geneva, knows that thousands of other seasonal children have similar stories to tell. “According to our latest research, we assume that between 1949 and 1975 around 50,000 seasonal worker children were forced to live secretly in Switzerland.” Also, according to Ricciardi, there are half a million young children who had to grow up apart from their parents because of their seasonal worker status. “In Italy these children often lived with their grandparents or at home.”

The era of illegality was over for the Fragale family in the early 1990s. But Luigi struggled for a long time with the results. “I was extremely withdrawn at school and could hardly say a word. The fear of doing something wrong did not suddenly pass from one day to the next.”

However, he gradually found himself during his hairdressing education. His teacher Hugo Rütimann, with whom he went to the hairdressing school in Olten SO, played a decisive role. “He took his time and took me under his wing. For that, I am forever grateful to him.”

Fragale now has her own hairdressing business. He made his way to Switzerland, whose laws had deprived him of a carefree childhood, and has long been at peace: “By the way, I know there are a lot of good people here,” he says, laughing.

However, it is hard to accept that some Swiss now want the seasonal worker law to come back: “A policy that separates children from their parents and allows families to live in hiding should never exist again”.