Nearly two-thirds of unaccompanied foreign children arriving in Italy have fled care homes and are now at risk, an international humanitarian organization warned on Tuesday.
Save The Children said that 60% of minors placed in Sicilian care homes after landing on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa had vanished in the period between May 2008 and February 2009.
The results, part of a broader Save The Children study on the treatment of foreign unaccompanied minors, showed that 1,860 children had been placed in care homes during this period.
Of these, 1,119 had disappeared.
It said just 12 of the kids had a resident's permit at the time they vanished, leaving them highly vulnerable to exploitative employers or worse in order to survive.
The organization believes the missing children ran away from the care homes as a result of poor conditions.
''These homes are not only overcrowded, they are also poorly financed, meaning the conditions for new arrivals is being eroded,'' commented Save The Children Italia Director Valerio Neri.
The decision to alter the status of a migrant complex on Lampedusa, from a reception centre to an expulsion centre, has resulted in children being sent to areas not adequately equipped to deal with them, the report said.
Between November 2008 and February 2009, over 200 children were placed in facilities designed for adults.
But even appropriate care homes are without proper funding, and lack of clothing, sanitary supplies, phone cards and pocket money is causing kids to flee in search of work, it said.
The report pointed out that only a tiny percentage of the 39 Sicilian care homes monitored had cultural mediation services, while just a third had educators able to speak a foreign language.
This meant minors often found themselves completely isolated, cut off from information that could help them integrate, receive an education and understand their rights.
The report noted that boys between the ages of 16 and 17 accounted for 91% of minors in care homes. Over a quarter of these were from Egypt, followed by 11% each from Nigeria and the Palestinian Territories, 10% from Eritrea, 9% from Tunisia and 7% from Somalia.
''Such a high number of kids fleeing is not only the result of a worsening of conditions but also of a lack of information about the opportunities the Italian law can offer these youngsters, as well as a lack of clear training and professional programs for minors,'' Neri said.
MINISTER ATTRIBUTES DISAPPEARANCE TO ORGAN TRAFFICKING.
The Save The Children report comes three months after Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni attributed the disappearance of foreign minors to organ trafficking.
Maroni said just under a third of minors arriving in Lampedusa in 2008 had disappeared.
''We do not know what happened to them but cross-referencing this fact with information about organ trafficking from the home countries of these minors, we can assume this problem also involves Italy,'' he said.
Maroni argued the disappearances were further indication that Italy should ratify a convention allowing it to share sensitive personal information with other European Union countries.
Last year's Save The Children report said ''hundreds'' of foreign children are recruited in their home countries to come to Italy, where they are exploited by slave trade rackets, including organ trafficking, illegal adoptions and prostitution.
This year's report did not mention organ trafficking.
