2024-03-27 16:45:28
Italy has announced the expansion in Sicily and the Naples area of a program aimed at preventing child mobsters from following in the footsteps of their parents. According to the program, such children will be taken away from their families, AFP and BTA reported.
Established in 2012, this program aims to break the cycle in which power is passed from generation to generation by bloodline.
“This is a historic moment in the fight against the mafia,” said Justice Minister Carlo Nordio, who presented a protocol signed by five ministers and the Italian Bishops’ Conference.
The Free to Choose program was founded by juvenile judge Roberto Di Bella in Calabria, where the most powerful mafia, the ‘Ndrangheta, is based.
Now it will cover the other two major bastions of organized crime in the country: Sicily, where the Cosa Nostra mafia operates, and Campania, the area whose capital is Naples and where the Camorra mafia operates.
“At the age of eight, children learn to shoot. At the age of eight, they sell crack,” said Chiara Colosimo, chairwoman of the parliamentary anti-mafia committee.
Di Bella stated that there have been cases of children being forced to kill their mothers to protect family honor. But he has also seen children “who still have light in their eyes, who hope for a different life.”
Since the start of the program, around 150 children have been placed in foster families or communities in secret locations in Italy, where they get to know life outside the mafia clans.
According to Di Bella, 30 mothers chose to follow their children, and seven of them became collaborators with the justice system.