Italy: Unaccompanied child migrants on the rise

An Italian research centre for the voluntary sector, Cesvot, has published a report that details worrying facts about child immigration. In the past seven years more than 50,000 unaccompanied minors have entered Italy, that is an average of 7,700 minors per year.

The report reveals that this trend is a relatively recent one. For the most part (73%) the children entering Italy, illegally, are between 15 and 17 years of age while 25% of them are 7 to 14. The vast majority of them, 85%, are males and their countries of origin are: Romania (37%), Morocco (22%) and Albania (15%).

Monica Giovanetti, the author of the report, explains that these youths often leave their homes to migrate abroad alone with the consent of their families, who let them leave in the hope that they will find a better future elsewhere.

The report also contains interviews with 11 children who arrived to Italy by themselves, with no to take care of them during their trip nor when they got here, and with 12 ?privileged witnesses?: social assistants, judges, policemen and people who work and volunteer in immigrant shelter homes.

So what do these children do once they reach Italy? How do they learn to fend for themselves? According to Giovanetti, there are two possible paths they can take. Either they will join the illegeal immigration clans, or they will become integrated into the local systems that welcome and provide for immigrants. As the figures and stories published in the report show, if unaccompanied minors who enter the country illegally manage to contact the police or other immigrants who have managed to integrate with the local community, they have a much greater chance of being channelled into the social service systems available to immigrant communities.

Maria Giovannetti?s report concluded with a warning. This is not an emergency, she highlights, but a problem that is steadily emerging and we will have to learn how to deal with it in the coming decades.

www.cesvot.it