BEZERRA, C. B. Distantes do berço: impactos psicológicos da migração na infância [Away from the crib: psychological impacts of the migration in the childhood]. Master’s Dissertation – Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Florianópolis (SC), 2016.
Available on: https://repositorio.ufsc.br/bitstream/handle/123456789/176662/345646.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
The image of the Syrian boy found lifeless on the shores of the Turkish beach has become a symbol of the migratory crisis that has plagued the world in recent years, unprecedented in the history of humanity. The increasing number of global displacement brought on by wars, conflicts and persecutions has reached record levels of people forced to leave their homes in search of survival. The number of children making up asylum applications around the world is significant, and the percentage in Brazil is also increasing. In search of shelter in the host nation, small immigrants have wounds that go beyond body scars. A review of the literature on children’s mental health of immigration was carried out, and the lack of national publications was verified. International findings pointed to challenges faced by children upon arrival in the host country, psychological impacts from immigration and proposals for intervention in the mental health of small refugees. Studies show that children demonstrate emotional and behavioral changes as a hallmark of the traumatic experiences associated with forced immigration. Based on the theoretical reference from the state of the art, psychoanalytic assumptions and intercultural perspective, the purpose of understanding the psychological impacts of involuntary immigration in children aged 6 to 12 years residing in Greater Florianópolis arose. The methodological design with ways to reach this objective was configured as a qualitative research, descriptive and exploratory. The study involved 07 immigrant children and 08 caregivers responsible for them, all of them living in Brazil for at least one year. The small immigrants carried out Thematic Drawing-and-Story Procedure related to their country of origin and the host country, and their caregivers were interviewed through a semi-structured script with questions focused on the child’s immigration. The projective information of the story drawings was analyzed from a free inspection of the material based on the psychoanalytical framework and complemented by the analysis of the formal aspects of the drawings. The narratives of the interviews with the caregivers were submitted to content analysis. After the results obtained with the children and caregivers were discussed in dialogue with the literature, the results were integrated. It was noticed that the children experience in the migratory process situations perceived as threatening, ruptures and losses. Depressive, anxious, and somatic symptoms were identified in the migratory experience. Risk factors for children’s mental health were observed and there were also protective factors for psychic illness in the period before and after immigration. The results point to the psychological suffering that immigrant children experience. The need to problematize the theme in the academic environment is also raised, but it is also estimated that the content worked in this study can reach the community, schools and government institutions that act on the routine of immigrant children in Brazil. It is hoped that the reflection on the psychological impacts resulting from involuntary immigration favors the foundation of practices that guarantee the attention to the mental health of the small immigrants, with a sensitive view of the singularity of the cultural differences.