Italy announced on Tuesday the extension to Sicily and the Naples region of a program aimed at preventing children at risk from following in the footsteps of their mafia parents by removing them from their families.
Founded in 2012, this program aims to break the cycle in which power is transmitted from generation to generation through blood ties.
“This is a historic moment in the fight against the mafia,” welcomed Justice Minister Carlo Nordio, presenting a protocol signed by five ministers and the Conference of Italian Bishops.
The “Liberi di Scegliere” (Free to Choose) program was founded by juvenile judge Roberto Di Bella in Calabria, the toe of Italy’s boot where the peninsula’s most powerful criminal organization, the ‘Ndrangheta, is based.
It will now be extended to the country’s two other major bastions of organized crime: Sicily, seat of Cosa Nostra, and Campania, a region of which Naples is the capital, where the Camorra operates.
“At eight years old, children are taught to shoot. At eight years old, they sell crack,” recalled Chiara Colosimo, president of the anti-mafia commission in Parliament.
Mr Di Bella said he had seen cases of children being forced to murder their mothers to defend the family’s honour. But he also took care of children “who still have light in their eyes, who hope for a different life.”
Since the program’s launch, some 150 children have been placed with foster families or communities in secret locations across Italy, where they are discovering life outside the clans.
According to Mr. Di Bella, 30 mothers chose to follow their children and seven of them became collaborators of justice.
Now a judge in Catania, he says he has received letters from imprisoned mafia bosses thanking him for helping save their children.
“Important mafia bosses have also become state collaborators to protect their children, including one who said he was doing it for his grandchildren,” he told AFP.