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Every year, hundreds of boys travel alone, at great risk, from Afghanistan to Italy. They‘re looking for refuge, for an education, for an opportunity to escape the war zone in their country. And yet Italy turns away many of them, barring their entrance and taking no steps for their protection or care.

I met one such boy, “Ahmed S.,” last summer, as we did research on the topic. Ahmed said he fled his home in Afghanistan in 2011, fearing for his life. Only 17 years old, he traveled alone to Greece, where he made his way to the port city of Patras.  Ahmed managed to hide underneath a truck that boarded a boat headed for an Italian port. He lay wedged on top of a box between axles for 18 hours while the boat crossed the Adriatic Sea. On arrival, Ahmed was met by Italian police, who promptly detained him.

“I told them the whole story [of what happened in Afghanistan], showed the scar,” he said, saying that men associated with the Taliban had attacked him near his home. Ahmed wanted to apply for asylum, but he never had a chance to speak with a lawyer or meet a representative of nongovernmental groups that are supposed to help boys like him in Italy. No one told him his rights. Instead, just four hours after his arrival, Italian port officials sent him back to Greece on the same ship he had come on. This time, he traveled in a cell in the ship’s machine room, with only bread and butter to eat and no access to a bathroom.

Instead of offering protection to children who make these treacherous journeys, Italy is sending them back to face horrible risks. In Greece, migrant children face destitution, law enforcement abuse, and appalling detention conditions. The situation is so bad that the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Greece is not a safe country of asylum. Greece’s dysfunctional asylum system leaves children, like all asylum seekers, without a fair chance to receive protection.  

Without asylum in Greece, they may be deported back to Afghanistan, where they face risks of recruitment to become child soldiers, violence, and lack of access to basic needs including shelter and food. And if children try to leave Greece again to reach Italy—as the majority will do—they will face once more the risk of police abuse in Greek ports and the risks of the journey itself, including loss of limbs or death, while hanging underneath a commercial truck or hiding inside refrigerated containers or fuel tanks.

You would think Italy would help children at risk—yet none of the boys we interviewed for the report were given adequate assistance upon arrival in Italy. Ali M., for example, said: “I hadn’t eaten in two days. As soon as the truck arrived in Italy, I was very hungry so I got out and I took only a few steps and the police caught me.…They asked me, I said I was 15. They talked to the Greek authorities and put me on a boat back to [the Greek port city of] Igoumenitsa.” None of the boys we talked to were allowed into Italy; all were turned around within hours.

Italy has agreed to standards that require unaccompanied migrant children like Ahmed and Ali be granted access to Italy to determine what next steps are in their best interests. 

But our research shows that Italian authorities send children back to Greece summarily or following a cursory, incomplete age determination process that doesn’t meet international standards. If authorities question whether  an individual is a child, that person should be admitted to the country pending a multidisciplinary age determination process. Yet, Italian port officials do not heed the boys’ claims that they are children – at least not consistently – and refuse them access to the country and to guardians or others who could help them understand their rights. 

Ali, Ahmed, and boys like them have escaped a war-torn country and traveled a treacherous route for months to reach Italy. Surely they deserve a better welcome from “Italiani brava gente.” At a minimum, Italy should respect its obligations to admit these unaccompanied children to its territory, and give them a chance to establish their age and apply for asylum. Returning them to the risks from which they have come is little more than callous disregard for children‘s welfare.

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