Main Projects / Activities

Defence for Children Italy developed and implemented several projects aimed at preventing and tackling violence against children from the micro to the macro context, such as IMPACT, Fairy Tales E-PROTECT I and II. The project IMPACT aimed at improving and enhancing child protection and child welfare policies’ impact in better preventing and protecting particularly vulnerable categories of children from trafficking and exploitation. The European project Fairy Tales, aimed at preventing gender-based violence by disputing gender stereotypes from an early childhood in the EU. The European project E-PROTECT aimed at enhancing the capacity of the multidisciplinary professionals working with child victims of crime, while reinforcing the child’s right to be heard, the right to information, the right to protection and privacy and the right to non-discrimination. In this context it launched the E-PROTECT Methodology for a rights-based individual assessment of the needs of child victims of crime, aims to providing guidance for professionals involved in the individual assessment of child victims’. As a member of Keeping Children Safe, an international network promoting child safeguarding in entities and organisations, DCI Italy has a long-standing expertise in developing child safeguarding strategies, policies and protocols for state authorities, public and private institutions, service providers and organisations, and training staff on the their application in day-to-day work, when consulting children or inviting children to participate in events. In Italy, our organisation delivered training to several stakeholders and developed child safeguarding and wellbeing protocols for entities and institutions, including a Nursery, a theater, a NGO and a alternative care facility for unaccompanied children. In collaboration with the Council of Europe Children’s Rights Division, we developed the child safeguarding and wellbeing protocol for the participation of the young delegates of the conference launching the Council of Europe Strategy for the Rights of the Child in April this year.
DCI Italy has a long-standing experience in promoting the rights of children in migration and safeguarding child victims of exploitation and trafficking in the context of cross-border mobility, migration and asylum. Our organisation has a particular strong portfolio of analysing and supporting the development of effective guardianship for unaccompanied children. In Italy, we have provided training and technical assistance to the national and regional independent authorities for children who are competent to organise and support guardians of unaccompanied children. In view of our long-standing experience in guardianship training, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) contracted DCI Italy at the end of 2020 to develop the EU Trainers Manual for guardians of unaccompanied children, as well as an associated e-learning platform and resource centre.
Since 2009, DCI Italy has been driving a reform process to secure the right to access to justice of migrant and refugee children in Italy. Our activities in this field have informed the development of a National Action Plan on Guardianship and, subsequently, we collaborated closely with Parliamentarians and an interagency and multi-disciplinary coordination group on the drafting of the Italian Law 47/2017 on the protection of unaccompanied children.
DCI Italy developed multi-fold activities, such as empowering and awareness raising amongst migrant children and youth on their rights to protection and available support services. In addition, we are providing capacity building activities targeting officials and professionals working with migrant children and youth who are victims or at risk of violence, and other main actors in the child protection system delivering victim support services. The overall objective is to strengthen the capacity of these actors to identify and respond to the specific needs and vulnerabilities of migrant children and youth. In Genoa, Italy, DCI Italy operates the Child Rights Help Desk, a legal clinic, which provides legal advice to children in migration, as well as relevant professionals, such as lawyers, guardians or social workers. Primarily directed at migrant and refugee children, the help desk provides legal advice and assistance also in cases where children are in contact with the justice system, due to their migration status or as suspects or accused persons in criminal proceedings, some of them being also victims of violence and exploitation, including in the context of trafficking.
Promoting the rights of children to grow up free from violence, neglect and exploitation has been a core element of our organisation’s work since 2005. In collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Justice, the Public Prosecution Services and the Juvenile Prosecutor Office of Naples, as well as local and regional authorities and service providers, DCI Italy has been providing technical assistance for the development of a protocol for collaboration towards an integrated service model comparable to Barnahus. The need to coordinate criminal justice responses with social work and civil law proceedings and giving due consideration to prevention and restorative justice measures is a particular concern in Naples and we are actively involved in developing solutions and propositions for change that are meaningful for the region. To inform this process, we have organised bilateral exchanges and a fact-finding visit of an official Italian delegation to Portugal. DCI Italy has also organised a series of international seminars and events on the rights of child victims of crime, the individual assessment and the Barnahus model.
DCI Italy is a founding member and represented in the Steering Group of the Child-friendly Justice European Network established this year with funding support by the European Commission and collaborates in almost all activities to promote child-friendly justice in Italy with the Italian Ministry of Justice and with local judicial districts, an interagency and multi-disciplinary round table of juvenile justice stakeholders representing national ministries and institutions, service providers and academia. In one of our more recent initiatives, the EU co-financed project CREW (2021-2022), we carried out research and a gaps analysis and, on this basis, developed policy recommendations, led workshops and consultations, and provided capacity building activities. The Just Closer project aims at strengthening the respect of the procedural rights of children and youth in contact with the justice system by valuing their voices and recommendations and promoting their active participation, while creating a child hub of positive role models and reinforcing skills of professionals working with and for children. In addition to the activities in the juvenile justice field, the initiatives presented in relation to the Strategy’s first priority on freedom from violence for all children are directly relevant for this strategic priority as well (kindly refer to above).
Defence for Children International – Italy intends participation of children and young persons as central to its action and as a cross-cutting issue in all its activities. In all projects and actions Defence for Children Italy foresees participation of children - foreseeing not only consultative participation, but also collaborative participation and child-led initiatives. In particular, Defence for Children Italy consulted/collaborated with children and youth in relation to various fields, such as child-friendly justice, migration and asylum, child protection, a social welfare sector friendly to children and families, education and health care in the best interests of the child, as well as the active engagement of children in local governance, processes of democratisation and human rights education. The Youthlab project, co-financed by the European Union, was a project implemented by Defence for Children Italy together with a number of other partners, in the field of Juvenile Justice. The innovative aspect of this project is involving youth in the development and delivery of the training and using creative training techniques. The experiences of young people shape and enrich the training and can be seen as a form of child participation in itself. This is meaningful and useful experience for young people, to re-evaluate their history and to be able to make sense of their penal experience, while at the same time strengthening certain skills (communicating, public speaking, reasoning, relating to others, etc.). Also, DCI Italy is a member of the Council of Europe pools of experts for the CP4Europe project and has led the work to develop an online platform of the child-participation leadership network. We have carried out these activities in continuation to the coordination of the consultations of children in 10 Member States to inform the drafting process of the new Strategy for the Rights of the Child, as well as the coordination of the participation of young delegates at the Strategy’s launching conference in Rome this year and their continued involvement in the activities that followed. We are currently coordinating the National Youth Council on behalf of the Italian Ombudsperson for Children’s Rights, a body composed of 50 boys and girls under 18 coming from all the Italian Regions and working to contribute to meaningful changes in the Italian society.
Please find enclosed the 2023 Activity Report.