Detained children, “Not my crime but my sentence”: the rights of minors of parents in prison

ROME – There are around 100,000 children in prison in Italy with one or both parents. A huge number of little ones who carry this pain with them, often kept secret. The organizations that deal with this phenomenon often affirm a simple and central principle according to which these children do not need to be treated in a special way, but only to have their condition recognized and to be protected.

Twenty years of Children without bars. In October the organization Children Without Bars now in its twentieth year of activity, it has launched the third year of work of the national project “Prison to the test of children and their families – Application of the rights of children of imprisoned parents”. The card was renewed in December 2021 by the then Minister of Justice Marta Cartabia, by the Authority for Childhood and Adolescence Carla Garlatti and by the president of children without bars, Lia Priest.

The game with mom and dad. After two years of interruption due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the sixth edition of the “Mama and dad match” returned in June, with the participation of eighty-two prisons, as part of the European awareness campaign “Don’t my crime, but my conviction”, on the theme of children of parents who are imprisoned and which takes place simultaneously in twenty EU member states.

international activities. Children without bars in 2022 it carried out a series of activities at European level, aimed in particular at illustrating the “Charter of the rights of children of imprisoned parents” and the project “Prison to the test of children and their families”. The goal is to raise awareness on the issue of children of parents in prison, including at an international level. In particular, the organization contributed to the annual conference of Children of Prisoners Europe (COPE), the General Assembly and the workshops held in Portugal; to a series of seminars for insiders organized by the Probacja Foundation and the Andrzejja Frycza Modrzewskiego University of Krakow and to the international conference also organized in Krakow on the theme “Child Friendly Justice”.