Thanks to the support of the Open Society Foundation, the conditions of unaccompanied foreign minors have been monitored along Italy’s northern borders, from August to October 2017.
From the results of our assessment emerge, for the areas on Italy’s northern borders, a widespread failure to apply the provisions laid down to protect unaccompanied minors, be they international, European or national regulations. Furthermore, the various operational practices we have observed harmful seriously the rights and the mental and physical wellbeing of the persons concerned.
French, Swiss and Austrian authorities systematically send back minors intercepted by them to Italy and, albeit in ways varying from place to place, they fail to meet the obligations of i) protecting minors and ii) taking them into care.
The management of migratory flows appears, as we have seen in practice, to be a sort of sanction system. The only fault of migrants appears to be that of wishing to free themselves, through enormous sacrifices, from the state of victims, from a way of life in which they are often the victims of abuse, exploitation and violence.
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