Committee on the Rights of the Child

Eightieth session

14 January–1 February 2019

Item 4 of the provisional agenda

C onsideration of reports of States parties

List of issues in relation to the combined fifth and sixth periodic reports of Italy

The State party is requested to submit in writing additional, updated information (10,700 words maximum), if possible before 12 October 2018. The Committee may take up all aspects of children’s rights set out in the Convention during the dialogue with the State party.

Part I

1.Please provide information on the human, technical and financial resources available for the implementation and coordination of the Fourth National Plan of Actions and Interventions for the Protection of the Rights and Development of Children and Adolescents of 2016, and on the establishment of a national data collection and monitoring system on issues related to children.

2.Please provide information on measures taken to strengthen the independence and mandate of the National Authority for Childhood and Adolescence to effectively provide comprehensive protection to children in coordination with existing regional ombudspersons’ offices. Please update the Committee on the creation of a national human rights institution that complies with the principles relating to the status of national institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights (the Paris Principles).

3.Please provide information on how the State party ensures that its policies, strategies, laws, practices and mechanisms to prevent and combat the discrimination of certain groups of children, e.g., children living in families with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex parents, or who are themselves lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex, children born to unmarried parents, children living in single-parent families, asylum-seeking, refugee or migrant children, and Roma, Sinti and Caminanti children, are effective. Please explain how the State party guarantees the rights of Roma children when their camps are dismantled.

4.Please provide information on the steps taken to streamline the procedures for acquiring Italian citizenship for children born in Italy to non-citizen parents who would otherwise become stateless.

5.Please clarify the progress made in the State party’s legislation to prohibit violence against children, including explicitly prohibiting corporal punishment at home. Please also provide information on the impact of Act No. 71/2017 for the protection of children from cyberbullying, and if any of the policies, strategies and plans on violence against children listed in the State party’s report (see CRC/C/ITA/5-6, paras. 85–99) have been renewed.

6.Please provide information on how the Observatory to Counter Paedophilia and Child Pornography has been operating since it was revitalized in 2016 and its data collection system strengthened. Please also provide clarification on how the State party addresses the consequences of impunity for child sexual abuse committed by clerics in view of article 4 of the 1985 revised Lateran Pacts, which does not require ecclesiastics to divulge any such information to the authorities.

7.Please provide updated information on the progress made towards the deinstitutionalization of children deprived of a family environment as per Act No. 149/2001, including on the creation of a corresponding national register, and the results of the surveys mentioned in the State party’s report (see CRC/C/ITA/5-6, paras. 118 and 121). Please also provide information on the implementation of the guidelines for family foster care and on out-of-home care across all regions.

8.Please provide information on measures taken to address and eradicate child poverty across all regions, including on the adoption of the National Plan for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion.

9.Please provide information on how the State party ensures that all children, including non-citizen children, have access to health services and on how the State party prioritizes addressing the relatively low take-up of compulsory vaccinations despite Act No. 119/2017 and corresponding guidelines.

10.Please provide information on the measures taken to ensure that all children, including non-citizen children, have access to quality education in schools and day-care centres, including early childhood education, across all regions. Please also describe the steps taken to eliminate regional disparities with regard to inclusive education for children with disabilities.

11.Please describe the impact of the National Strategy for the inclusion of Roma, Sinti, and Caminanti Communities 2012–2020 and the 2016 project “La scuola al centro,” in particular on the educational inclusion of students from these communities outside the main municipalities of the State party (Rome, Milan, Naples and Palermo), and the conservation of the Romani language as an educative and inclusive tool.

12.Please provide updated information on the measures taken to strengthen the framework law on political asylum and ensure its implementation, and to improve the reception and the living conditions of asylum-seeking and refugee children, including unaccompanied and separated children.

13.Please provide information on the implementation of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, in particular on the National Plan for the Prevention and Fight against Abuse and Sexual Exploitation of Children, including time frames and budget allocations, measures focusing on children who are at particular risk of abuse and exploitation, as well as measures to ensure the rehabilitation of child victims.

14.Please provide information on the implementation of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, in particular on explicitly criminalizing the use, recruitment and voluntary enlistment of all children under 15 years of age by armed forces and armed groups as a war crime, ensuring that students in military schools maintain a civilian status until they turn 18, and on which government entity monitors the rights of children in military schools.

Part II

15.The Committee invites the State party to provide a brief update (no more than three pages) on the information presented in its report with regard to:

(a)New bills or laws, and their respective regulations;

(b)New institutions (and their mandates) or institutional reforms;

(c)Recently introduced policies, programmes and action plans and their scope and financing;

(d)Recent ratifications of human rights instruments.

Part III

Data, statistics and other information, if available

16.Please provide consolidated information for the past three years on the budget lines regarding children and social sectors by indicating the percentage of each budget line in terms of the total national budget and the gross national product. Please also provide information on the geographic allocation of those resources.

17.Please provide, if available, updated statistical data disaggregated by age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, geographic location and socioeconomic status, for the past three years, on:

(a)Racist and xenophobic acts against children;

(b)Children living in families with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex parents;

(c)The number of criminal accusations, prosecutions and convictions against sexual abusers of children among the clergy and in public institutions;

(d)Children who are victims of female genital mutilation/cutting or who are at such risk;

(e)Children who are born intersex;

(f)The number of non-urgent, irreversible surgical and other procedures that have been undertaken on intersex children before an age at which they are able to provide informed consent;

(g)Children of incarcerated parents and children living in prisons with their mothers;

(h)Children who use illicit drugs or substances;

(i)The number of children seeking asylum in the State party, including unaccompanied or separated children and children who have left the reception centres, and the number granted refugee status;

(j)The number of unaccompanied or separated children placed in, respectively, hotspots for first identification, and first- and second-line reception centres, and the minimum and maximum duration of their stay in each institution;

(k)The number of expulsion orders against children issued and executed by the juvenile courts for reasons of public order or security of the State;

(l)Children in street situations;

(m)Children who are victims of trafficking and exploitation.

18.Please provide data disaggregated by age, sex, socioeconomic background, ethnic origin and geographic location regarding the situation of children deprived of a family environment, for the past three years and covering all regions, on the number of children:

(a)Living in institutions;

(b)Placed in foster care;

(c)Living in adoptive families;

(d)Internationally adopted;

(e)Living in kafalah;

(f)Abandoned by their families.

19.Please provide data, disaggregated by age, including the age group of 0–6 years, sex, type of disability, ethnic origin and geographic location, for the past three years, on the number of children with disabilities:

(a)Living with their families;

(b)Living in institutions;

(c)Attending regular primary schools;

(d)Attending regular secondary schools;

(e)Attending special schools;

(f)Out of school;

(g)Abandoned by their families.

20.Please provide, if available, updated statistical data disaggregated by age, sex, type of offence, ethnic and national origin, geographic location and socioeconomic status, for the past three years, on children in the juvenile justice system:

(a)Arrested;

(b)In detention, including in pretrial detention, and serving criminal sentences;

(c)In diversion programmes.

21.Please provide the Committee with an update of any data in the report that may have been outdated by more recent data collected or other new developments.

22.In addition, the State party may list areas affecting children that it considers to be of priority with regard to the implementation of the Convention.