Los menores extranjeros no acompañados en Italia: puntos críticos en la integración entre políticas nacionales y intervenciones locales

Abstract

Unaccompanied foreign minors (or UAM) constitute a specific subgroup, in terms of characteristics and legal conditions, of users of social services. The increase of their presence, beyond representing the obvious sign of a transformation of Italy into a country of immigration (at least from a "numerical" point of view), demands a global reflection and reorganization of the Welfare Systems. In response, in recent years Italy has implemented a reception system, developing at the same time a specific regulation on the protection of unaccompanied minors, which resembles its situation to that of other protected minors in the national territory. In past years, the services present in the territory had to respond to situations of continual emergency, rather than to promote true programmatic interventions. This criticality persists in the current situation, in which, in the face of the development of a national host model, there are still significant differences in the local application of the reception, which offers a general image of interventions that is still very fragmented and variable, dependent of the differences between resources and regional social policies.