Unaccompanied minors: a challenge to children protection system Elisabetta Kolar – Ministry of Justice, Juvenile Social Service, Trieste, Italy

Unaccompanied minors Who? The unaccompanied minors are underage people, who are not Italian or EU citizens, who stay in Italy without parents or the forth degree relatives or without a legal guardian How many?

The unaccompanied minors in Friuli Venezia Giulia FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA Population: 1,221,860 inhabitants Minors: 184,692 (15% of the total population) Foreign minors: 22,446 (12.2% of the total minors)

Background Since the 1990s Friuli Venezia Giulia has been interested by unaccompanied minors’ increasing flows, coming from the Balkans, Eastern Europe and different Asian countries. Although today the states of origin are different, the eastern migration route is still prevailing. Italian legislation found (and still finds) difficulty in balancing the national security measures and minors’ protection. The regional administration has never adopted regional reception standards. The municipalities have always provided social care, but, in the meantime, they have to face severe cuts in social spending. Hence, they try to reduce social provisions towards the unaccompanied minors, suggesting their assisted voluntary repatriation or denying them everything that exceeds the mere subsistence.

Background At the beginning social workers were not ready to face the unaccompanied minors’ needs and the social services were not organized to accomodate them. Throughout the years social workers and educators have improved individual care, educational offer, employment, socialization, without ignoring the possibility of repatriation if requested by youngsters. Moreover the Juvenile Court ordered the municipalities to provide facility care for the unaccompanied minors and, in the meanwhile, appointed a legal guardian for each of them to prevent conflicts of interest.

Something about our reasearch It is a longitudinal study, realized by three NGOs, which considers the local interventions towards the unaccompanied minors during the three years ( ). The study aims to answer the following questions: Which kinds of social provisions are guaranteed to unaccompanied minors? Do social provisions towards unaccompanied minors implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child? Can a specific model of intervention be recognized? These questions refer to different dimensions which can be summed up in three words: protection, personal development, integration. These dimensions were operationalized and became queries of a questionnaire which was administered to the educators of the facilities by the reasearchers.

Something about our research The reasearchers received a list of unaccompanied minors recovered in facilities from the municipalities. Using a random sampling (one minor out of five of the list) the research team could collect the data concerning about 20-25% of the unaccompanied minors accomodated in facilities (which can be considered a reliable sample). Some interviews to educators and social workers, who could offer a privileged point of view, completed the study.

About the unaccompanied minors… Almost all the unaccompanied minors were males (90%), years old (about 70%), coming above all from Eastern countries (the Balkans, East Europe, Asian countries) and, sometimes, from Northern Africa. The majority of the minors were accomodated in facilities for the first time and only 20% left the facility before legal age. Many of the minors belonged to migrant families (i.e. from country to town) and someone among their relatives was already living in Italy. A great part of the minors (40%), whose relatives lived in Italy, spent a short time with relatives during their stay in the facility, but only 11% of them were given in custody to their relatives. A little percentage (5%) of minors went into foster care.

Familiar background and education

Protection All the minors were subjected to a Juvenile Court decision about their protection and their accomodation in facilities. All the minors were informed about the assisted voluntary repatriation, but only about 1% requested it. All the minors were informed about asylum or humanitarian protection seeking, but only a little percentage (1.3%) asked for it, even when they came from war zones or were subjected to persecution. All the social workers and educators recognized that the relational dimension is crucial in the minors’ protection, but their operating styles were very different, as emerged in the interviews.

Relational dimension and operating style The push actors The innovators The pessimists The empathetic actors The push actors: they pay attention to procedure and formal interventions, but find difficulty in meeting minors’ needs. They are sure that after the legal age the youngsters won’t have any chance to stay in Italy. The pessimists: they give importance to the relationship in a formal way, so that they meet the minors’ needs, but they are sure that there won’t be any chance for them. The empathetic actors: they give a great importance to the relationships, irrespective of the procedures. They are able to meet the minors’ needs, but they find difficulty in providing social care. The innovators: they pay attention to the relationship so that they can meet the minors needs and, at the same time, they know the procedures very well so that they can find the between-space where new practices can take place. procedure relationship formal substantial

Relational dimension and narrative approach Social workers and educators give a great importance to the minors’ history, but they aren’t always able to recognize the signals of exploitation, involvement in illegal activities, etc. Moreover, they would like to know everything in a short time forgetting that an authobiografical telling requires: Time: social workers have to wait for the youngster to be ready to tell his own history; Trust: the minors’ tellings can be considered as a gift which can be given when the minor is in trust with the social worker and he is not afraid of the consequences of his telling (i.e. when he or she tells about sexual or labour exploitation or about an involvement in criminal activities). The narrative approach can be useful to help the minor to develop a reflective practice. Moreover it’s useful to the assessment: social workers can recognize the protection needs, provide substitutive care, promote legal protection and improve psychological support (above all when the minor has to face a trauma).

Personal development It includes: substitutive care, educational training, support in finding a job, etc. Most of the minors (87%) completed their educational training during their stay in facilities. The majority of failures (25%) occured among the minors who had to complete compulsory education. After educational training, a lot of minors (48.5%) found a job in local farms. This facilitated them in obtaining the permit to stay in Italy after the legal age, but… …the permit is never taken for granted: it has to be negotiated every time.

Integration It has been developed in two directions: towards the minors and towards the community. Minors’ integration includes all the interventions which aim to develop the relationships among peers (i.e. to take part of formal and informal juvenile groups, to practice sports, etc.) and to involve minors in the community life (i.e. the minors’ engagement in community interventions). Social workers and educators spent much time in making the community aware of the unaccompanied minors’ needs. This facilitated the minors’ school attendance (irrespective of the time of their enrollment), sometimes the minors’ employment and the minors’ involvement in social events.

Which model of intervention? A three-dimensional perspective Social worker People communityinstitution The social workers’ interventions develop simultaneously three dimensions: people (person, family, group), institution, community. The three-dimensional perspective seems to be useful in uncertain situations, when professionals have to mediate among different requirements coming from people, institutions and the local community. This perspective emphasizes the ‘social’ nature of social work: it suggests to find the solutions of the problem in a mid-area (which is both individual and social) where human rights and social justice can be guaranteed and citizenship rights can ‘be practiced’ (Lorenz, 2004).