At least 2,409 children with foreign nationalities have disappeared in Italy in the first four months of 2022, according to data provided by the Italian government. This averages about 20 foreign children and 10 Italian children daily.
The government said in its report that in addition to outnumbering Italian children at a rate of two to one, foreign children are also more difficult to find, as many enter the country using irregular means. This results in them often being placed in Italy's migrant hosting system, from which they often escape, according to government data.
The government's commissioner for missing people added that 72.11% of the children and teens who were tracked down in the first four months of the year were Italian nationals, while 31.17% were foreign citizens. This marks a slight improvement compared to numbers from last year: In 2021, 79.27% of those who were found were Italian citizens while 26.35% were foreign nationals.
Police say that in order to fight child disappearances, it is important to report a missing minor as soon as possible, as the first few hours are key for investigators to be able to trace and find the child.
This can be done by dialling the emergency services number 112 or the European hotline for missing children, which in Italy can be reached at 116000. There's also the police app YouPol, where missing persons can be reported.
While Italian minors who go missing often report family problems, cyber bullying and drug-related motives as reasons for their disappearance, foreign children and especially unaccompanied minors often are motivated by other factors, which usually involve migrating elsewhere.
Italy's Minister for Equal Opportunities and Family, Elena Bonetti, highlighted the government's commitment to fight this phenomenon through an awareness campaign, urging the public to call an emergency number as soon as a minor disappears.
Ronzulli appealed for closer cooperation between schools, institutions and families to identify minors at risk and to help prevent them from fleeing. She also called for beefing up protection protocols for foreign minors and added integration efforts.
There is a long history of migration via the Mediterranean. Human mobility in all directions across the Mediterranean has occurred for thousands of years. More recently, since at least the mid-1990s, thousands of people each year have crossed the Mediterranean by boat from the northern coasts of Africa and Turkey to seek asylum or to migrate to Europe if they do not have the documentation required by the countries of destination. It should be noted that the Mediterranean Sea is where irregular migration to Europe is most visible.
There is a long history of migration via the Mediterranean. Human mobility in all directions across the Mediterranean has occurred for thousands of years. More recently, since at least the mid-1990s, thousands of people each year have crossed the Mediterranean by boat from the northern coasts of Africa and Turkey to seek asylum or to migrate to Europe if they do not have the documentation required by the countries of destination. It should be noted that the Mediterranean Sea is where irregular migration to Europe is most visible. However, people also use other irregular migration routes to reach Europe, including the sea crossings from Africa to the Spanish Canary Islands, from Comoros to French Mayotte, and the land route across the Turkey-Greece border and to/through the Balkans. The information here focuses on mixed migration dynamics of the three main routes to Europe across the Mediterranean Sea. However, it should be noted that these routes are not always used as defined and can overlap. Journalists and civil society organizations have documented the risks associated with these migration routes since the early 1990s.[1] Since 2014, Missing Migrants Project has recorded the deaths of over 20,000 deaths and disappearances in the Mediterranean Sea.
Between 1997 and 2010, an average of about 23,000 migrants arrived in Italy each year across the Mediterranean, though the number of arrivals recorded dropped to less than 10,000 between 2009 and 2010. In 2011, the number of migrants arriving in Europe via the Central Mediterranean route rose dramatically: 62,692 sea arrivals were recorded in Italy, a 13-fold increase over the 4,406 recorded in 2010. Migrant arrivals in Italy remained high in the years following 2011 but dropped in mid-2017. However, it is unclear if this is a true reduction in people arriving or due to an increased number of interceptions of migrants at sea by North African authorities and/or more deaths at sea. The former is particularly the case, as the number of people being returned to North African shores has increased in recent years. Interceptions by the Tunisian and Libyan coast guards accounted for 8 percent of all search and rescue operations in the Central Mediterranean in 2016, but by 2018, 49 percent of the total number people recorded attempting to cross were brought back to Tunisia or Libya. This shift can be attributed to several factors, including the decreased maritime patrol area of Italian authorities and the shift of EU/Frontex assets from maritime vessels to drones incapable of conducting rescue at sea.
Since at least 2014, when the Missing Migrants Project began, the Mediterranean Sea has become a site of escalating numbers of migrant fatalities. The migratory journeys prior to these Mediterranean crossings are also highly risky, as they often involve crossing remote terrains such as the Sahara Desert and residing, at least temporarily, in countries such as Libya where conditions for migrants are often dangerous.
The Central Mediterranean is the deadliest known migration route in the world, with more than 17,000 deaths and disappearances recorded by MMP since 2014. This is due both to the length of the overseas journey, which can take days, as well as increasingly dangerous smuggling patterns, gaps in search-and-rescue capacity and restrictions on the life-saving work of NGOs. Migrants often cross the Central Mediterranean in unseaworthy, overloaded inflatable boats. Multiple boats may also be launched at the same time, which complicates search and rescue efforts significantly.
More than 2,000 migrant deaths and disappearances have been recorded on the Western Mediterranean since 2014, with the vast majority involving shipwrecks on the overseas route to the Spanish mainland. However, the land crossings to the Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta are also hazardous, with several dozen deaths recorded by MMP attributable to violence, sickness and lack of access to health care. In several cases, accidental and violent deaths have occurred at the border fences of these Spanish enclaves linked to attempted crossings.
In addition to the challenges inherent to collecting data on missing migrants, ensuring full coverage and completeness of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean faces unique obstacles. The nature of any overseas crossing means that it is highly likely that migrants may disappear without a trace, especially in cases where people are lost at sea or shipwrecks occur with no survivors. This is exemplified by the hundreds of remains recovered on the shores of Libya which are not linked to any known shipwreck, as well as the many reports of shipwrecks with no survivors that are challenging to verify. This means that not only is the documented number of deaths and disappearances on these migration routes likely an undercount, but also that for the vast majority of recorded cases little to no information on the individuals who die is available.
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Cruise ship accidents, injuries, crimes, disappearances, fires, and collisions on the high seas involve issues of maritime law. Jim Walker graduated from law school in 1983 and has been handling maritime law cases for the past thirty-five years. He handles a wide variety of cases from serious injuries to the highest profile sexual assault and cruise crime cases.
On 23 February 2016 the Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, the Court) issued a judgment in the case of Nasr and Ghali v. Italy. The Court unanimously found Italy responsible for violations of Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) (prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment), Article 8 ECHR (right to respect for private and family life), Article 13 ECHR (right to an effective remedy) with respect to both applicants, and of Article 5 (right to liberty and security) with respect to Mr Nasr.
This analysis aims to contextualise Nasr and Ghali v. Italy in the broader jurisprudence of the extraordinary renditions cases examined before the ECtHR, while focusing on the findings of the case at stake concerning the responsibility of Italian institutions (namely, the Government, Chief of State and Constitutional Court) in providing impunity to those responsible. Furthermore, it will examine the practice of extraordinary renditions in international law, to establish whether the case can fit the definition of enforced disappearance, and how this could enhance the protection of renditions victims.
As described above, extraordinary rendition entails the cumulative violation of a number of rights, in the course of a single, if complex, pattern of conduct. In the ECtHR case law, violated rights include the right to personal liberty and security, the respect for private and family life, the right to access effective remedy, and in certain cases, the right to life. Extraordinary rendition, furthermore, generally involves the perpetration of torture and other inhuman or degrading treatment, which is not a necessary element of the crime of enforced disappearance.
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