The “Charter of the rights of the children of imprisoned parents” was renewed for another four years. The memorandum of understanding between the Ministry of Justice, Agia and Bambinisenzasbarre Onlus was signed by the Minister Marta Cartabia, by the Authority for Childhood and Adolescence Carla Garlatti and by the president of the Lia Sacerdote association, at the headquarters of the Dicastery of via Arenula. The ‘Charter’, the first of its kind in Italy and Europe, recognizes the right of minors to the continuity of the emotional bond with their imprisoned parents and aims to support their right to parenthood. The protocol provides that the judicial authorities are made aware of and invited to a series of actions to protect the rights of minor children of detained persons. In 2021 alone, up to 30 November, there were 280,675 interviews between prisoners and at least one minor family member. The agreement is intended to promote initiatives in the field of pre-trial detention, places of detention, spaces for children in waiting and interview rooms, visits on days compatible with school attendance, video calls, and the training of prison staff who comes into contact with children, for information, assistance and support for parenting. Data collection and monitoring of the implementation of the protocol are also planned.
The ‘Charter of the rights of children of imprisoned parents’ contains a series of measures to protect the rights of children forced to live in a prison facility with their mothers. To date, there are 19 very small children following 17 mothers in prison, at the end of 2019 these numbers were more than double (44 mothers and 48 minors present in prisons). Just the day before yesterday, a mother with a child left the ICAM in Turin. “Our goal is ‘no more children in jail’. All children, even if their parents are in prison, have the right to childhood – comments the Minister of Justice, Marta Cartabia – With this Charter too, we work to ensure that children, innocent by definition, do not pay the penalties inflicted on mothers “. “At the same time, we are working to reduce as much as possible that ‘distance from loved ones’ caused by detention. All children have the right to maintain a constant relationship with their parents, even if they are imprisoned – he adds – Ensuring the continuity of family ties also has a positive effect on the prisoner, in the constitutional perspective of the sentence aimed at re-education. We work for prisons, which help to give a second chance ».
“Wherever it is in his interest, the child has the right to nurture a bond with both parents, even when one of them is detained. This must take place in conditions and in ways that are not traumatizing and in spaces that favor an authentic relationship »comments the guarantor Carla Garlatti.
“It is essential to support parental and family relationships during and beyond detention, giving support to minor children who are affected in their overall well-being, with repercussions on psychophysical health and on the continuity of schooling. The Charter commits the Italian penitentiary system to deal with the presence of children in prison and with the weight that the detention of one’s parent entails in respecting the rights of children and adolescents ».
“The Charter that has been renewed today stems from a long journey that began ten years ago and represents the tool that can change the lives of the children that Bambinisenzasbarre has been following for twenty years – says the president of the association, Lia Sarcedote – are the boys who they have one and both parents in prison who live the weight of the social stigma for this condition of a child, whose fate others see as already written. The ‘Charter’ frees these children from exclusion, and from easy do-goodness, which takes away dignity from the choices that life can offer them, to which they must be able to access with the awareness and strength to represent a promise for themselves and for the whole society. The Italian Charter became a model for the first Recommendation of the 47 countries of the Council of Europe in April 2018, anticipating a path that other European countries, and beyond, are now facing “.