UN says Italy violated a boy's rights after six years in a children's community

A request for help becomes a six-year placement

In 2017 a mother facing difficulties after her separation from her partner asked social services in a municipality in the Lecco area for support in raising her son, who was ten at the time. The response was a proceeding at the Milan juvenile court, which in January 2018 ordered that the boy be placed in a community together with his mother. The court did not hear the boy and did not consider a relative's willingness to take him in. Under the placement he could see only his closest relatives, twice a month and in the presence of an educator. According to Corriere della Sera, which first reported the case, he wrote a letter asking the judges to remove him from the community, but the community prevented him from communicating directly with the court.

Appeals and the Cassation ruling

In October 2020 the Milan Court of Appeal confirmed the community placement, but only for the child. His father challenged the decision before the Court of Cassation and brought the case to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. The complaint was taken to the committee with the help of Alessandra Borsato, an expert on children's rights who directs the interdisciplinary master's programme on children's rights and adolescence (Midia). The committee accepted the complaint and asked Italy to make sure the boy was heard by judges with the assistance of a lawyer. The Court of Cassation then annulled the entire proceeding because, among other reasons, no legal guardian had been appointed for the boy. In 2024 the judges entrusted him to a relative, the point at which the court case ended.

What the UN committee found

The committee accuses Italy of an arbitrary deprivation of the boy's liberty and says he was never heard by the judges during the whole period. It describes removing children from their families as an extreme measure with a particularly significant impact on children's lives and development. According to the committee, such removals should last as briefly as possible and only where no alternative exists. It asks Italy to act immediately to ensure that all proceedings aimed at removing children from their parents follow the 1989 New York Convention on the Rights of the Child. The committee also calls for the boy to be heard with legal assistance, which the proceedings did not provide for years.

Italy's response

Italy told the committee that all domestic laws had been respected in the case. In the same reply it said that the situation could improve in the future, stating:

“A broader political planning effort aims to strengthen monitoring and controls.”

The reply does not change the committee's finding that the boy's rights were violated. The complaint remains before the UN committee, and the articles do not say when it will rule on the remedies it requested.